Irish people cannot make the same mistakes as generations before and “ignore” historical sexual abuse in religious orders, according to an activist. 

Gardaí launched an appeal for reports after a scoping inquiry revealed 2,400 allegations against over 800 people across 300 schools. 

Gardaí received 160 reports of historical sexual abuse relating to schools run by religious orders between September 4th and September 7th. 

Former One in Four Director Colm O'Gorman told The Anton Savage Show the next step is setting up a Government commission for investigation. 

“Generations of people ignored it,” he said. 

“What we need to do now is not ignore what we know right now.” 

Mr O’Gorman noted that nothing that appeared in the RTÉ documentary that first exposed the abuse was not already known already to the Catholic Church and State. 

“One of the most difficult things, and I'll speak personally on this for me when the documentary came out, was that we were back here again,” he said. 

“They'd known every system, both the criminal justice system, the civil legal system, the political system and the church authorities had known about what had happened to them for 20 years and nothing was done about it.” 

Accountability

Mr O'Gorman noted of the 2,400 allegations against religious orders, just 149 came from personal testimonies of “extraordinary” people. 

“All of the other allegations were gleaned from the files of religious congregations,” he said. 

“The congregations had this information long before the Scoping Review came anywhere near them. 

“This is an institution that for many, many decades denied the fact that this was even happening.” 

Mr O’Gorman said when it comes to redress, there needs to be a firm punishment for religious orders. 

“We need to stop talking about cooperation and start talking about accountability,” he said. 

“If our systems of law are not able to hold organizations who are responsible for extraordinary acts of criminality and the cover-up of that criminality in an orchestrated, wilful and deliberate conspiracy, we've no right to call ourselves a Republic.” 

Historical sexual abuse

An Garda Síochána is now in the process of responding to each individual report. 

Following the scoping inquiry, the Government has now accepted a recommendation to set up a Commission of Inquiry.  

However, it has not yet decided on a redress scheme, one of the other main recommendations of the report.  

Gardaí have advised people to contact the Garda Child Sexual Abuse Reporting Line on 1800 555 222.  

Anyone who has been impacted by abuse can also contact the charity One in Four on 01 66 24070 for information on their counselling services. 

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