Just imagine that in some alternative universe, a woman with a doctorate in education and religious studies was also a Catholic bishop. She is sitting in conference with the other bishops, who are planning an inquiry into the events surrounding the disgraceful treatment of a whistleblower.
She has knowledge, not under the seal of the confessional, but through meeting the whistleblower in question, that, due to actions of people she leads, he has been falsely accused of the heinous crime of child abuse. She decides to say nothing to her fellow bishops. Naive, or negligent?
Could she not at least intimate that there were serious allegations concerning an agency under her remit? There would be no need to go into specifics. Tone would be enough.
Those of whom the media approves are naive; those whom the media dislikes are negligent. In reality, Katherine Zappone is not a bishop but a Minister, one with responsibility for Tusla.
Were she a bishop she would be hounded for the inappropriate keeping of secrets and for the fact that the child-safeguarding systems are so flawed as to allow the situation that faced Sgt Maurice McCabe to arise. Declaring an investigation would not absolve her.
Copy and paste
In all the salivating by political hacks at the prospect of toppling Taoiseach Enda Kenny, not enough attention has been paid to the extraordinary claim that it is possible to copy and paste extremely serious allegations regarding child abuse from one file to another.
If there is one crime where it should never be possible to copy and paste, it should be sexual abuse of children. A little like Tolstoy, who claimed that happy families are all alike but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, each crime of child abuse is different, with its own bitter shades of pain. It is not something that one accidentally enters into someone’s file through inadvertent copying and pasting.
Were she a bishop she would be hounded for the inappropriate keeping of secrets
How could such serious allegations be made without the person at the centre of them having any knowledge of them? How could files be opened on McCabe’s children without action being taken there either?
Most importantly, how many other injustices have been done to people? McCabe has had a long and lonely road to vindication, but in the usual Irish fashion everyone is now falling over themselves to express sympathy and solidarity.
How many others are out there with no powerful connections, but no less appalling treatment meted out to them?
It has long been acknowledged that there are systemic problems in our State child-safeguarding system. Such was the disarray that a period of grace was given in 2014 when the new agency, Tusla, was set up, in the hope that progress would be made.
The choice of one Scot, Gordon Jeyes, to be chief executive, followed by another, Fred McBride, to lead the organisation was implicit acknowledgement that help and expertise was needed from outside.
But what has happened? There has been some progress, certainly, but no root-and-branch transformation.
Church excoriated
Even now, excuses are being made for Tusla, such as that it is under-resourced. Those of whom we approve are under-resourced. Those whom we dislike are uncaring. When the Catholic Church, speaking about historical cases of child abuse in residential institutions, advanced the argument that they happened at times of great poverty in Ireland, it was excoriated.
However, today, in much richer times, such excuses are apparently acceptable.
In justice, it must be acknowledged that working with children and families can be thankless. If families come to the attention of social services, there are usually complex, enmeshed problems that are difficult to disentangle, and the intrinsic vulnerability of children adds to the difficulty. Administrative work and being seen to be doing something can begin to replace the real, messy and difficult work of dealing with families.
It has long been acknowledged that there are systemic problems in our State child-safeguarding system
The most experienced and qualified people should be assigned to it. Instead, it is often the most inexperienced.
For example, a report by the Health Information and Quality Authority last July found that, in the midlands, extremely sensitive cases were being handled by people with two years’ experience, most of whom were agency workers. Of a sample of 53 cases reviewed by Hiqa, 10 per cent were so serious that they had to be immediately referred to an area manager.
It is important to remember that these cases concern vulnerable children at high risk, and that the potential for disastrous consequences is very high.
An additional €37 million was allocated in the last budget to create more posts and to speed up the allocation of social workers to the most serious cases. It remains to be seen what will happen. But throwing money at the problem will not solve systemic problems. That needs leadership.
The vital questions regarding our child-safeguarding system are in danger of getting lost not only because of the distracting adrenaline rush of political blood sports but also because it is painful to acknowledge that we are still failing children, and the scapegoats are not quite as convenient to find as they once were.