There is a sadness that envelopes anyone who takes the time to stroll around the former industrial school at Letterfrack. The sculpture in memory of those who suffered there in the adjacent church is also a silent reminder that screams out at us in a way the children who were incarcerated there were unable to do. In the dark days of the fifties, sixties and seventies, when hope was in short supply in Ireland, it was even less in abundance for those who were placed there often through no fault of their own, abandoned by the State to become the sexual and physical playthings of a brutish regime.
There are some who argue with reasonable conviction that when Ireland goes to the polls on Saturday to vote for the Childrens Rights referendum, that we will be handing the State back some of that power with which to take away our children, to pluck them from the sanctity of the home, but any observers can see that this is definitely not the case.
And in this newly enlightened age, one cannot countenance any situation in which children will be removed if it is not in some exceptional circumstance endangering the safety of the child.
One of the key proponents of a Yes vote is Galway-native Geoffrey Shannon, the Government rapporteur on child protection who has been an advocate for children’s rights in both his professional life and as a teenager when he became aware of the horrific abuses that were taking place in his own neighborhood by people who had been trusted by the State and Church.
He is a man who oozes compassion for the right of a child to have a childhood. I have met him on several occasions in a variety of settings where this compassion comes through. It is as if he is determined to use every ounce of his knowledge, education, and gravitas to ensure that Ireland will no longer be a country where children are dismissed as being less equal than others, and by virtue of law, cut out from the legal decision that will impact on their childhood and on the quality of their adult life.
He is a man whom I trust implicitly to safeguard the rights of children. In addition to calling for a Yes vote on Saturday, he is rightly concerned that many people will not vote on the matter because they will assume it is a foregone conclusion. A low turnout may result in a skewed result and may endanger one or both sides of the argument, but to not bother to vote at all would represent a far greater wrong in my eyes and would represent a further rebuke to the child victims of this country in the past and in the present.
We cannot sip our lattes and smugly try to convince ourselves that child abuse in all of its awful forms, is still not rampant in this country. An average of 10 new cases every day are being reported to the HSE, according to its latest figures.
On Saturday, we should get out and vote, whichever way we feel is right so that at least we are participating in a process that should ensure that the Letterfracks of this country and all their horrors are consigned firmly to the past.
