Eideard

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Ireland will reform its social services for children in line with the recommendations of a report cataloguing decades of abuse by priests published last week, says Prime Minister Brian Cowen.

Cowen apologized to victims for the state’s failure to intervene in what the report described as endemic sexual abuse and severe beatings in schools for much of the 20th century and he urged religious orders to pay additional compensation.

“It is deeply shameful for all Irish people that this happened in our country and that for so long it was not confronted,” he told a news conference.

Cowen welcomed Tuesday’s announcement by the Catholic order of Christian Brothers that it would review the compensation paid to victims of sexual abuse and violence.

“I believe that other individual congregations involved should now also articulate their willingness to make a further substantial voluntary contribution,” Cowen said…

Successful legal action by the Christian Brothers, the largest provider of residential care for boys in the country in the period examined by the report, led the Commission to drop its original idea of naming the people against whom the allegations were made.

Sounds to me as if Eire is as guilty as ever of kneeling before the political will of the Catholic Church instead of standing up as a free people in a free land with faith in the laws of their own nation.

Placating the worst of the lot, the Christian Brothers, makes that clear. Cowards in charge of the government. More afraid of Bishops ordering their flock how to vote than enforcing modern standards of law and order.