The exposure of class prejudice

national | rights, freedoms and repression | press release

Thursday May 21, 2009 19:56

by Eugene Mc Cartan - Communist Party of Ireland

cpoi at eircom dot net

James Connolly House, 43 East Essex St, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

016708707 or 0879733414

The publication of the long awaited “The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Report” into abuse suffered by children and young people at the hands of religious orders while detained in residential institutions has exposed as never before the deep class hatred of working people and the rural poor that permeated the state, government and its agencies as well as the Catholic Church itself. This whole horrible feature of Irish society cannot be understood if its class nature is not recoginsed.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND

21st May 09

PRESS STATEMENT

The exposure of class prejudice

The publication of the long awaited “The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Report” into abuse suffered by children and young people at the hands of religious orders while detained in residential institutions has exposed as never before the deep class hatred of working people and the rural poor that permeated the state, government and its agencies as well as the Catholic Church itself. This whole horrible feature of Irish society cannot be understood if its class nature is not recoginsed.

The report lays bear the horrendous sexual and physical abuse, slave labour and starvation conditions that ten of thousands of children and youth suffered. Whose only crime was that they came from working class families, from the families of rural workers or small farmers, what they all had in common was that they were poor.

The contempt that the so called caring professions of doctors, teachers, solicitors and judges as well as the total disregard that the institution of the state had for these young people exposed that this state was and is deeply imbued with class prejudice in spite the best efforts to cover it up it is at its very core; its very essence.

There is no evidence to show that those who committed these crimes will be made to account for, nor is their any evidence to show that this report like many other before it or the current tribunals will produce any results. The same class prejudice and cosy class relationships are still well entrenched; - they still show the same contempt for working people, their families and their communities.

The Catholic church became the bedrock of the new state using it political and cultural control to intimidate the populace. The carnival of reaction was not just confined to the North of Ireland, catholicism was used in the South to ensure that the new emerging Irish elites consolidated and maintained their power. Statement ends

Eugene Mc Cartan
087 9733414