Exit poll: The post referendum thread. No electioneering.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Delusion.

Members of religious orders who were nurses, doctors, teachers, were paid a wage by the state same as any other member of those professions.
If they'd taken a vow of poverty and chose to give up their wage to their order, that was up to them.

Look at Tuam. The council was paying the nuns for the 'welfare' of the women and children incarcerated there. Same with every other 'home' in the country. Whatever the nuns did with this money, it didn't seem to be on the welfare of the inmates. And in many cases the women themselves or their families paid the nuns too. Those who couldn't pay ended up enslaved in a laundry. More profits for the nuns.

The Bon Secours nuns who ran Tuam now own a private healthcare (how Christian is that?) empire worth billions but will not pay a cent towards the survivors of Tuam.

Interesting. Do you have a source for that?


As to Tuam - the survivors deserve to be compensated.
The Government was, without doubt, lacking in their duty of care.
As were the Nuns.
Accordingly, the survivors should be compensated - but not by seizing schools that are the property of the Catholic Community as was suggested.


Building schools is the responsibility of the Government. They failed in that duty. Then failed further to adequately supervise care given to the poor unfortunates that were incarcerated there - frequently by the Gardaí.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Two reasons.
(1) The political class was in thrall to the RCC. No TD could risk being denounced from the pulpit by the local PP, or getting a belt of the crozier from the bishop.
(2) They, foolishly, naively, TRUSTED the nuns and priests and brothers to properly look after vulnerable adults and children, which is what the state was paying them to do!

It was never illegal to have sex outside of marriage, or to be pregnant outside of marriage. There was no legal basis for the detention of mother and baby home women, or for the vast majority of Magdalene laundry women who had not been convicted of any crime.

All adoptions before 1952 were illegal, forced adoptions after then remained illegal.

Your claim that the state's laws excused, or required, the nuns to do what they did is baseless.

Excuses. There were Inspectors periodically sent into these "homes".
I distinctly remember reading one report where a home was roundly criticised by an Inspector - and absolutely nothing was done about it.


You are correct in saying that it was never illegal to have sex outside of marriage - so how do you explain the Gardaí returning runaways to these hellholes?


I did not - at any point - claim that the states laws excused or required the Nuns to do what they did. I said the state was complicit by failing in its duty of care, and by allowing the Gardaí to assist in the incarceration/re-incarceration of these women and children.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Or some bogus trust they were moved into so abuse survivors can't get compensation.

The vast, vast majority of schools remain in the ownership of the Catholic Community. I think you'll find, certainly in my area, that any attempt to seize a school that my parents and grandparents contributed to, (as did the rest of the Community), both financially, and in voluntary labour - would be challenged very robustly.


The hierarchy of the Church does not own the schools. The people do.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Employees in state funded schools and hospitals were... paid. I don't know why you think this is at all strange, it would be strange if they were not.

The key word there is "state funded" I think.
I'd have to research when exactly the majority of schools became state funded, and, frankly, I can't be bothered.


Suffice to say that many priests and nuns procided free education for children long before the foundation of the state - and, I would suspect in many cases, for quite some time after it.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Well, seizing schools won't compensate anybody, because there'll still be a need for a school.

Precisely. So, why are we even debating this?


I responded to a comment that the state should seize Catholic owned schools - which, as you say, would be pointless - and all of a sudden I supposedly think Priests and Nuns were "compelled" or "obliged" to perpetrate horrendous abuse on the vulnerable that they were meant to protect? Hell, No!. There's no excusing what was done - and I wouldn't dream of trying - but that doesn't mean all Catholic schools should be seized is the only point I was making.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Hold on there.

Why do you think they're called "National Schools"? Read up on how that system came about in the 19th century and how the RCC and the Presbyterians(!) colluded to carve out state-funded schools under their control from what was supposed to be a pluralist non-sectarian system.

Many schools were actually built by the state, but on church land, and somehow or other the building ended up in church ownership.

Many more which were built fully or partially by "church" funds (i.e. money raised from the community) have since been greatly extended or entirely rebuilt at the full expense of the state, yet remain church owned.

Just a couple of years ago in Greystones a new secondary school was built by the state, on state-owned land, fully funded by the state. This school was then given to the Church of Ireland to run and use for evangelisation purposes. That's just wrong.

Now, you hold on.


There seems to be a lot of confusion about who contributed what to the schools.


There are four "National Schools" in my area.
In each case, a piece of land was donated (usually non-arable) and the people contributed whatever funds they had, and their own skills, whether labouring, building, carpentry, or whatever - to the building of the school.


In the case of my own National school, parents contributed loads of turf to heat the school in the winter, right up to around 1970, when the state contributed its first investment in the building, by installing a central heating system.


Since then, the only other contribution by the state to the "structure" was renting a prefab.


Those are facts. The remaining three schools are very similar, though one did get two classrooms built in 2015/16.


I do not believe for one second that my parish is unique in this.


I suspect that perhaps schools were built by the State in urban areas, but the rural rollout was probably much slower.
One thing I can say without a doubt is that there are schools that were built entirely by the Community, on Community land.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

They were wrong to defer to the church in the manner in which they did, but they were either in thrall of the church or terrified of it.

None of that can take responsibility away from those who committed the criminal abuses in the first place.

Meanwhile the bishops and cardinals who knew all along about the whole thing and covered it up face no sanction from their church or the law, even today.

You're entirely correct in saying that they were wrong to defer to the level they did - but I don't believe for one minute that they were in any way "terrified" of the Church


If Dev wasn't afraid to command soldiers in the Easter Rising, I'm pretty sure a "dressing down" by the local priest or bishop would hardly have left him trembling in fear!


That does not in any way, excuse, or attempt to excuse the abuse by members of the Church.
That is merely recognising the honest truth - that those Nuns and Priests could not have carried out abuse on that level without some level of complicity on the part of the State, and in particular, the "Justice" system.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The people do not own them! Look at what happened when the CBs decided to sell off a school playing field without the agreement of the ERST trust which "owned" the school never mind the parents and community who you say own it!!

The church controls these schools, the people have no ownership or control over them.

Let's just say that I'd love to see any Bishop try to transfer ownership of any of those four schools. Believe me, there would be an absolute uproar.
Those schools were built because of the sacrifices of our forbears. They will not easily be wrested away, believe me.