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THE DEPARTMENT OF Justice has rejected claims made by Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald that abuse allegations against the late Domhnall Ó Lubhlaí have been mishandled.
McDonald said she was compelled to raise the issue after victims had come to her for help.
Gaeltacht teacher Ó Lubhlaí — who died in 2013, was accused of abusing dozens of victims in the 1970s and 1980s.
A row over the issue caused the Dáil to be suspended three times this afternoon — after a long argument between Sinn Féin and the Ceann Comhairle.
In a joint statement, released in the wake of that incident, McDonald said she had been attempting to raise allegations that were “of the gravest nature” involving “possibly up to one hundred victims”.
A “brick wall” had been placed in the way of victims seeking justice, she contended.
That brick wall has been placed in their way by various agencies of the state, including a number of government departments and An Garda Síochána.
The statement expressed “serious concern” that victims had been refused access to a report from an internal Garda review into how the complaints and allegations were handled.
And it said the report had been “on the desk of the Minister for Justice since July”
McDonald also questioned why the Department and the Gardaí had yet to forward information to Child and Family Agency Tusla “to allow that agency to pursue its investigations into these allegations”.
‘Untrue’
However, in a statement this evening, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice said it was “entirely untrue to suggest that the Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald TD received the internal Garda review report on the O’Lubhlaí case or that any such report has been sitting on her desk”.
“It is equally incorrect to suggest that the Department has yet to forward information to TUSLA to allow that agency to pursue its investigation.
“The Department has no request from TUSLA for any information, nor does it have any information which would be relevance to a TUSLA inquiry.
“It would not be normal practice for a report of an internal Garda examination to be made public.
“However, the Department, on behalf of the Minister, is in contact with the Garda authorities with respect to identifying any information in relation to the review which might properly be put into the public domain and which might be shared with victims and their families.
A spokesperson for Tusla said the organisation would not be commenting on the issue.
Additional reporting, Daragh Brophy.
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I’m so glad that Ireland is commenting their war dead. They died to keep Europe free from tyranny. It doesn’t matter what army they fought in, their sacrifice needs to be remembered.
Commemorating…
Well said Jane!
What are you on about Jane? They died fighting for a empire hell bent on more power and influence, WW1 was empire against empire, tyranny came from all sides, not just the Germans.
@Jane Alford: WW1 was infighting amongst cousins and a rush over raw materials and land. It began like what Nato is like now, a build up of weapons and the industrial military complex selling them?
Thought it was about liberating a little country called Belgium, roughly the same size as Ireland, or is that conveniently forgot in order to dis those doing the dirty work..
@Jane Alford: “They died to keep Europe free from tyranny.”
You’ve got the wrong war there, Jane.
Respect to dead Irish soldiers.
While I refuse to wear the poppy because of the way it forced upon people in the UK. I always remember my family members that fought to in WWI.
It is not, and never has been forced onto British people. Unlike the Irish who completely ignored the sacrifice their countrymen made to oppose the tyranny of the Third Reich, Britons are proud to wear the poppy in remembrance of those who gave their lives. If someone doesn’t want to wear the poppy, that is their choice.
Third Reich? You’re thinking of a different war Jane. Also it is forced on British personalities, who are shamed for not wearing the poppy
@Jane Alford: Technically it’s not forced, however there is almost a lynch mob attitude towards people who choose not to wear it. This has definitely evolved in the last few years.
If it truly was the persons choice then nothing would be said if a footballer, tv presenter etc didn’t wear one. We all know this isn’t the case.
Wearing the poppy nowadays means a lot more than just remembering fallen troops.
Remembrance day is to remember all the fallen in all wars. Yes, “personalities” are “shamed” for not wearing the poppy, but that is a recent phenomena, and doesn’t mean anyone has to wear a poppy. Foreign nationals certainly don’t.
@Jane Alford: you are a foreign national if you wear a poppy!
Not in Britain you aren’t…
@Jane Alford: This is Ireland
The poppy is now associated with all wars and certainly for WW2 and the third Reich.
They way the Irish government treated men who fought in World War II is awful. The government did that, not the Irish people. The poppy became a thing in the UK shortly after Cork had been burnt to the ground in an act of revenge by British forces. Would you like to explain to my grandfather, who had served, yet lost his house why he should wear the poppy. So take your stupid cant of the Irish this and the Irish that back to your Brexit knuckle draggers friends in your local pub. They love that crud.
@Seamus Longshanks: I’m aware of that, but I am responding to a comment about wearing the poppy in Britain.
@Éanna McClean: Later history effected the meaning of the poppy?
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/the-torture-centre-northern-ireland-s-hooded-men-1.2296152
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot-to-kill_policy_in_Northern_Ireland
That is the problem with history, it changes according to the will of the people and with whistle blowers and leaks?
Ian, we treated our own soldiers who returned from Jadotville as cowards by our own Government until recently. A lot of them who did their Country proud had passed on in the meantime carrying the shame.
I personally cannot see why we should not remember the fallen of all wars that gave us the freedom from opression.
@Jane Alford: People are not aware that USA. France, Canada, NZ and Australia were all wearing the Poppy before UK. Npw worn also im Cambodia and India. It was an American Lady who first proposed the Poppy as a symbol agter reading Flanders Fields written by a Canadian major.
It’s not all about the Poppy. When i was in France they revered their soldiers and every Town and Village have a Monument au Mort and played their National Hymn all over France.
It’s not all about the Poppy. When i was in France they revered their soldiers and every Town and Village have a Monument au Mort and played their National Hymn all over France.
@ Rand. I wouldn’t wear the Poppy it is English. Its like asking them to wear Shamrock on St.Patricks Day.
@von: Wrong the Popy is not English read my post above your one before this
My grandfather committed suicide after he came back from the war he couldn’t cope with what he had seen and the way he was treated here in this Country. My grandmother had nothing she had to clean the church to feed her two children with no help from anyone except the British Legion, she gave the people here that treated her and her husband like dogs the finger by wearing the poppy!
@Charliegrl80: The British military got their use out of your grandfather and then left him without support after the war leading to his suicide and your grandmother wore their symbol in a silly effort to antagonize other people.
I don’t see any particular problem with your grandmother having to get a job to support herself.
@Charliegrl80:
If the Poppy was just a symbol for ww1 and ww2 dead heros it would be more acceptable here, its the connection with the troubles in the north and the sas that puts me off.
@Dot Com: ‘Troubles in the north’ – the words of a crazy man.
Especially worth remembering on this centenary year of the Battle of the Somme.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”
@MackPilon: …..
It certainly has become fashionable to wear the poppy and fete the commemorations in Ireland, I think it is an allusion to being a grown up nation.
The further we travel from the excesses of the brutal British presence in Ireland I guess the memory of those days and the fact that many of the Irish veterans of WW1 became Black and Tans gets conviently forgotten. But fashion and amnesia are inevitable I suppose.
If every country treated past conflicts as we do not one nation in Europe would be talking to another.
@Rand Al Thor:
Granted, but let’s not forget what the real Irish heroes were doing at the time. Truly fighting for the “rights of small nations”.
So the elevation of WW1 Irish volunteers to the status of almost sainthood needs to be countered by the the truth about what was going on and also the real motives of many of the Irishmen that went to fight for a foreign power.
You’ll be wanting a remembrance day next for resealing the bore!
@darren:
?
@joe Rand al Thor aka the dragon reborn from the wheel of time books.
For anyone looking to get into WW1 history check out Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast blueprint to Armageddon. Phenomenal.
@Shanners: Outstanding podcast. Informative and accessible.
@Shanners: WW1 has its roots in the Napoleonic wars and you could say Isis has its roots in WW1, history is like a series of dominoes with human nature at its heart?
The French army did turn up in their red flashy uniforms and got massacred as they stood at the back per tradition from napoleon era. Meat grinders.
@Shanners: Napoleon and Hitler made mistakes with Russia especially in the winter as did Hillary now lol. Or is that a bad joke?
I don’t have any particular axe to grind. My opinion is that on one hand people didn’t want to wear the poppy because sales went to help retired soldiers such as the parachute regiment and what happened in Derry. On the other hand there were a huge amount of irish men who fought for their own reasons and were airbrushed out of history. Then you had the 1916 leaders executed and ex ww1 soldiers sent over to try to quell a war of independence that was never going to be stopped. It’s a very complex symbol in this country because it raises memories of a turbulent time in irish history
@Peter O’Donovan: Money raised through sale of poppies goes to the RBL which has branches here in Ireland supporting Irish ex-service men and women and families here in Ireland and has been doing so for decades and will continue to do so
Not important enough for Enda !
FFS, so many oblique comments. My father served from 1939-1945 in the Canadian forces. I am proud of his service and share in today’s commemorations. Historically the day commemorates those who fought and died in the European wars of the 20th century. I’ll leave it there.
While happy tosee this the ceremony should have been at the Irish War Memorial Islandbridgw
Respect to my Granddad who fought in Flanders Fields when he was only 15.
He survived the war thankfully.
Red Poppy – No – it just approves British atrocities around the world since then.
I prefer a white poppy – http://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/white-poppies-and-remembrance
Our own small parish suffered in the First big one
We honour you
We as a nation copy everything the English and Americans do, our culture is being replaced through the media?
There is an Irish version of the poppy available to wear that specifically commemorates just WW1. I proudly wear this to remember the 3 members of my family killed 99 years ago http://rbl-limerick.webs.com
The vast majority of them were from the South East and were Catholic and conscription forced them to join as well?
No no and no. Conscription was never imposed. They tried but did not succeed in 1918. Irishmen went of their own accord. And they were from all over the Island.
@Alois Irlmaier: More nonsense written by the ignorant.
@Paddy Lions: I have been told of cases of Conscription here in WW1 and another of a man they tried to conscript in N. Ireland during WW2.
There was CONSCRITION in WW2 as well before you try to deny it… In N. Ireland and then the following Bevin Boys…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevin_Boys
“Bevin Boys were young British men conscripted to work in the coal mines of the United Kingdom, between December 1943 and March 1948.[1] Chosen by lot as ten percent of all male conscripts aged 18–25, plus some volunteering as an alternative to military conscription, nearly 48,000 Bevin Boys performed vital but largely unrecognised service in the mines, many of them not released from service until well over two years after Second World War hostilities ended.”
Men were conscripted during WW1 here…
Does anyone even bother reading a history book anymore?
Yeah historians like myself. Conscription was not imposed on Irish in WW1.
And alois… immediate fail for citing wiki.
@Rebecca De Stanleigh: You are right but the vast majority of Irish solders came from the South East of Ireland. But there were cases of conscription here during WW1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_Crisis_of_1918
“Despite opposition from the entire Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), conscription for Ireland was voted through at Westminster.”
“Although large numbers of Irishmen had willingly joined Irish regiments and divisions of the New Army at the outbreak of war in 1914,[6] the likelihood of enforced conscription created a backlash. This reaction was based particularly on the fact that implementation of the Government of Ireland Act 1914 (as previously recommended in March by the Irish Convention) was controversially linked with a “dual policy” enactment of the Military Service Bill.[7] The linking of conscription and Home Rule outraged the Irish nationalist parties at Westminster, including the IPP, All-for-Ireland League and others, who walked out in protest and returned to Ireland to organise opposition.”
Men were conscripted here, not a large amount but it did happen.
Alois ask my history degree. Go away.
@Paddy Lions: http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/the-forgotten-volunteers-of-world-war-ii/
“Common to virtually all was insistence on their Irish identity, reflected most significantly in support for neutrality despite their own decision to enlist. Some even argued that they were defending Ireland by their actions. However, that kind of argument and sentiment was not so apparent among those not resident in Ireland—those volunteers who didn’t return home and tended to have a more critical and distant attitude to their country’s role in the war.
Many Irish citizens who served in the war did not volunteer at all. Those in British forces at the outbreak of war in 1939 had little choice about the matter, short of desertion (British figures suggest that as many as 5,000 did desert during the war and returned to Ireland). Others who had been working in Britain for two or more years had the choice of returning to Ireland in 1939 or becoming eligible for conscription. Many in this category stayed in Britain and thus, in effect, volunteered.”
So the Irish in the UK were conscripted during WW2?
@Rebecca De Stanleigh: Ask my long dead cousins who were, history is written by those who win wars and you should know that if you have done history?
There was never conscription in Ireland. Read a book.
@Ian Phillip Creaner: Read my links… People were conscripted, but conscription was not policy here but hay the Irish government does not allow kidnapping but it allowed the US to use Shannon for kidnapping and tortured and that was called Rendition?
People do ignore what they want to ignore and that sometimes gets wiped out from history like orphanages here that allowed a certain pharmaceutical company to do experimental brain surgeries on healthy children, no just sexual abuse of children but experimental, that was a shocking Would You Believe RTE episode. Even experiments with vaccines on children / babies here as well?
http://humanrights.ie/economic-rights/vaccine-trials-on-children-in-residential-settings-legal-and-ethical-perspectives/
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/nun-admits-children-involved-in-medical-trials-30339349.html
They know how to hush things up for long periods of time, incase it offends countries or people?
@Ian Phillip Creaner: So you are saying no one was EVER conscripted in Ireland then???
@Rebecca De Stanleigh: Including forty one men from my own village of all denominations who never came back and were never commemorated apart for a few in the local churzch of Ireland.
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