REVELATIONS of physical and mental abuse by staff in a care home
for people with severe learning disabilities was the latest in a
catalogue of misuses of power that the Churches in Ireland have
failed to address, the Dean of Leighlin, the Very Revd Tom Gordon,
said on Sunday.
After TV broadcasts of the abuse at Áras Attracta, a care home
in Co. Mayo, which had been filmed using a hidden camera, Dean
Gordon said: "The constantly recurring horrors in our political
life, in our institutions of care, and in our Churches are not only
the corrupt acts of individual people; they emerge from a deeper
and darker sickness: namely, the historic inability of the Irish
psyche to negotiate power per se."
The Irish Health Service Executive has confirmed that a number
of staff members at the home have been suspended, pending an
inquiry into the abuse.
