Sir, – I am writing to support the request made by a group of survivors of institutional abuse in their letter to The Irish Times. They asked that the Government delay passing the Retention of Records Bill into law to allow time for wider consultation with survivors of institutional abuse.
This consultation is vital because of the negative impact a law-making institutional abuse survivors’ testimony secret for 75 years would have on the mental health of survivors who contributed to the Commission to Inquire into Child abuse (CICA) and The Residential Institutions Redress Board and Review Committee (RIRBRC).
I write in my capacity as UCD professor of clinical psychology, and expert on the effects of trauma and institutional abuse. I conducted the largest ever study of Irish survivors of institutional abuse. This study involved interviews with 247 survivors and was included in the Ryan report. I conducted similar research for the Scottish child abuse inquiry. This study involved witness statements from 225 survivors. I have also published numerous articles on institutional abuse in leading international academic journals including a review of all major international studies of the effects of institutional abuse which involved data on over 3,800 survivors.
With regard to the Retention of Records Bill, many survivors of institutional abuse are very distressed by the implications of the Bill if it becomes law.
They are distressed because it will mean that testimony about their abuse which they made to CICA & RIRBRC will remain a secret for a further 75 years.
To move past the psychological distress, mental health problems, hurt, and shame caused by institutional abuse and the secrecy surrounding it, survivors need their accounts of the abuse to read, heard, understood and validated.
It is essential that accounts of the trauma survivors suffered are no longer secret.
Survivors need to know that lessons learned from how their traumatic experiences were allowed to occur and to be kept secret for so many years will have an impact on preventing institutional abuse from occurring again. This will contribute positively to their mental health and recovery. – Yours, etc,
ALAN CARR,
Professor of Clinical
Psychology,
University College Dublin,
Dublin 4.