Cork industrial school survivor stages one-man protest at probation services HQ
Civil servants including probation officers, child welfare officers and judges were involved in the historical "trafficking" of children to industrial schools, Seamus Kelly claims.
A Cork industrial school survivor who was abused during his time in St Laurence’s industrial school in Finglas in the seventies has staged a one-man protest at the headquarters of the Irish probation services today.
Seamus Kelly says probation officers falsified his date of birth when he was a child charged with a string of burglaries in Cork city, making him two years older than his true age and eligible for incarceration in St Laurence’s.
“Children were trafficked through the courts and in come cases with the assistance of probation officers,” Mr Kelly said. “I want them to acknowledge that what they did was wrong.”
This is the second time Mr Kelly, who lives in Mayfield, has protested at the probation services headquarters in Smithfield in Dublin.
He protested last November with his wife, Pat, and was offered a meeting and an investigation into his claims, which he says have not materialised.
Mr Kelly, whose story featured in a Tripe + Drisheen Long Read in early January, was compensated by the Residential Institutions Redress Board in the mid-’00s for sexual abuse and violence that he suffered during the two years he spent in St Laurence’s.
While religious orders have had to claim some responsibility for their treatment of children in industrial schools, State employees and civil servants have not faced any repercussions for their role in incarcerating children, Mr Kelly said.