The man who alleges he was sexually abused by an IRA man and subjected to a republican kangaroo court has said he expects another victim of the same attacker to go public about his experience.
Paudie McGahon (40), from Co Louth, said this week he was raped by an IRA man in the bedroom of his home when he was 17.He told RTÉ yesterday that another, younger victim, had suffered "severe trauma" following childhood abuse.
“I knew that chap long before it ever happened and then all of a sudden he started to lose control of his life, but he has got control back,” Mr McGahon said. “He stood up and he wants to be counted, same as I do and whenever that chap feels the time is right he will come forward.”
Interrogated
He said the two of them were interrogated together and claimed Sinn Féin members told him the other victim could be harmed if Mr McGahon went to the Garda.
“It was a double-headed coin, we’ll go the gardaí with you if you want but at the same time if you go to the gardaí it will knock him off the wagon. You’re trying to protect another victim at the same time.”
Mr McGahon’s statement came after Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan told the Dáil she believed Sinn Féin and the IRA had conducted 100 investigations into child abuse.
Ms O’Sullivan told Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary-Lou McDonald that her party needed to take “responsibility in all of this, rather than putting it on people who were abused and putting it on providing a smokescreen in relation to a North- South intervention”.
Sinn Féin has proposed a process to be established under the auspices of the North-South Ministerial Council to examine the issue. Ms McDonald said the person who “raped and brutalised” Mr McGahon needed to face the full rigours of the law.
Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin said a commission of inquiry, similar to those which examined clerical sex abuse, should be established by the Coalition.
Mr Martin told the Dáil this had proved effective when dealing with clerical abuse and Ms O’Sullivan agreed the idea had merit.
Rejected claims
In a statement released last night, Sinn Féin leader
Gerry Adams
said he rejected claims that his party “has investigated cases of sexual abuse”.
Mr Adams also said Mr McGahon’s alleged abuser was on a list handed to the Garda last November. He has said he first became aware of Mr McGahon’s claims in 2009.
Mr Adams has said the list was given to him anonymously through the letterbox of his Belfast home, but Mr McGahon said this was hard to believe.
“Gerry Adams is telling the public that he got a list of 27 people or whatever it may be, anonymously delivered to his door,” McGahon said. “I find that very hard to believe. You could walk up to my door or your door and put a letter in, but there’s no way you can walk up to Gerry Adams’s front door in Belfast and hand in a letter anonymously. It doesn’t happen. It’s a fortress.”
Mr Adams said any investigations by Sinn Féin would be inappropriate.
