Compelling audience contribution from Michael O'Brein on Questions and Answers re: the Ryan Commission Report on Child Abuse

We had a pretty compelling and some might say damning contribution from abuse victim and former FF councillor Michael O'Brien on Questions and Answers last night.

Q&A May 25th

I had wanted to write something more to go with this last night but the hour was late and the spirit weak. This clip was television at its worst and best.

Worst in the sense that it made you feel deeply uncomfortable, even prurient, to be sitting in the comfort of your own home watching someone who was so raw from the pain they had suffered as they and yet this too was its best aspect because it made solid and concrete the real lifelong impact on just one of the many thousands who otherwise might otherwise be merely statistics on a page.

As for the response from the religious that it was left to them to provide these services that was in large part because any attempt to provide a secular option was fought by the church who viewed health and education as their domain. And we must again look to cast aside this mentality in public discourse that if someone or some organisation had done some good that this somehow acts as a counterweight to some appalling activities they may have been involved in.

The party political or that merely more personally political aspect to this is how the process has been managed since the problem came into the public light and the deal done by the then minister Michael Woods is entirely political and so it should be. He was a minister elected to represent us in those negotiations and instead it would appear from the deal that was done and the manner of it being done that he had the interests of the religious closer to his heart than that of the citizenry, and in particular those who had been abused, who he was meant to represent.

The fuller piece from the show is also worth watching on the RTe iplayer.



Local note: I have already posted this to Irish Election last night and had intended posting a more thoughtful post but it was cut short due to lack of time. More generally my posting here and elsewhere has been truncated due to what I'm terming Dadwatch. News on that front is good, the quackerati are happy with his progress and he's up and about a bit more being a cheeky devil. So the long term prognosis is very positive. Might get some time for proper writing in the next while too.