Complaints from former residents at St Joseph's industrial school Letterfrack, Co Galway, increased from 12 to 449 following the Taoiseach's May 1999 apology to former residents of such institutions and his promise of redress, a senior Christian Brother said yesterday.
Brother David Gibson, provincial of the Christian Brother's St Mary's (northern) province, said that prior to the congregation's own 1998 apology to residents who had suffered abuse in institutions managed by them, they had received three complaints.
That figure rose to 12 before the Taoiseach's apology. He felt that some complaints "may have been instituted by redress" which, he acknowledged was "probably not politically correct to say".
He said there was evidence that solicitors organised meetings in pubs in England and Ireland where people came together to discuss compensation.
There was also, he said, "a very strong impression of a very big contamination of evidence where complaints about one institution applied to other institutions".
He pointed out that following newspaper advertisements by the Christian Brothers seeking out complaints, following their own 1998 apology, and additional media coverage, a further nine complaints were received in addition to the three already made.
"Following the offer of compensation [by the Taoiseach] there were 449 complaints. We must wonder at that," he said.
He disclosed there had been 1,356 boys at Letterfrack over its lifetime.
Brother Gibson was speaking at a phase three public hearing by the investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, in Dublin.
He continued later that the Brothers had received reports of groups of solicitors having "thousands of copies of RTÉ programmes and distributing them to former residents at meetings".
He also said lists of Brothers' names were handed around at such meetings and that gardaí handed out lists of named people [Brothers] to complainants. "There could be complaints made against people simply because they taught at the institution," he said.
Two Brothers who had been at Letterfrack received suspended jail sentences for sex abuse and he apologised for that, expressing his sorrow at any evidence of serious abuse at Letterfrack.
Defending the care provided at Letterfrack he said it was "the best that was available" at the time but he did agree the psychological and emotional needs of the boys were not met "and couldn't be".
He noted that between 1939 and 1973 "almost uninterrupted positive things were said about these institutions" in State reports.
Overall he felt the food had been "very adequate" but that there was "very gross underfunding" by the State.
He pointed to the 1936 Cussen report that local authorities were unwilling to contribute to the care of the children. A 1964 visiting committee report said Letterfrack was "absolutely inadequately endowed," he said.
A 1966 Tuaraim report noted Letterfrack was then waiting eight months for local authority grants and the 1970 Kennedy report said it was fairly obvious funding was totally inadequate.
At no stage was funding from the State adequate, he said.
