BACKGROUND:The Granada Institute has been dealing with clerical child sex abusers since the mid-1990s
THIS MONTH sees the winding down of the Granada Institute which treats people who have sexually abused children.
The institute was opened in Shankill, Co Dublin, by the St John of God Brothers following a meeting between its then provincial and a deputation from the Irish Bishops Conference in 1994. That was the year in which Fr Brendan Smyth was arrested and jailed in Northern Ireland and when an Irish government fell due to related events.
Initially at the institute the great majority (more than 90 per cent) of people treated were Catholic clergy facing allegations of child sex abuse or with convictions for same. In more recent years, however, between 80 per cent and 90 per cent of people treated there have not been clergy.
Also in recent years, referrals from the HSE accounted for 25 per cent of those treated there, with the remainder coming through the criminal justice system, via solicitors, doctors and with some self referrals. In all an estimated 1,800 people have been treated at the institute since it opened in 1994.
In the 10-year period from 1999 to 2009 accumulated losses at the institute amounted to €2 million, a figure which was met by the St John of God congregation, as have continuing deficits since.
Twenty-five of the 46 priests against whom allegations of child sex abuse had been made in the Dublin archdiocese between 1975 and 2004, and who were investigated by the Murphy commission, were treated there. Murphy was frequently critical of the institute in its findings, describing the institute’s report on Fr Terentius as “seriously deficient in many respects”.
The commission “found it very difficult to understand how Granada can categorically state that Fr Laurentius was not involved in child sexual abuse when there is evidence that he admitted to such abuse while in Jemez Springs and when there are two complaints from 16/17-year-olds in Ireland.” It expressed itself “astonished” at another finding of the institute’s in relation to this same priest.
It further queried how it arrived at a finding in relation to Fr Edmondus, who abused Marie Collins as a child. “It is not at all clear how Granada could have known this other than by accepting what they were told by Fr Edmondus,” it said.
In May 2010, and in response to the Murphy commission criticisms, the board at the institute commissioned an independent review of its services. It was conducted by social worker Kieran McGrath, who was chairman; Bríd Clarke, who was a member of the Kilkenny incest investigation team in 1993; and Dr Paul McCarthy, who was nominated by the HSE and who had been clinical director of child and adolescent psychiatric services at the Eastern Health Board for 30 years.
Their report, published last October, found there had been “very positive feedback” about the institute from prison and probationary services who “greatly valued” access to its expertise.
Among its concerns, however, was “inconsistency in clinical practice by some Granada Institute staff” which “varied in worrying ways”. There was also “an over-readiness to allocate a ‘low-risk’ designation to a client, without taking all available information into account”.
