Cardinal Seán Brady is unfit for job he holds, says Brendan Smyth sex abuse victim
Above Brendan Boland with his wife Martina photo left & Benedict XVI meeting the head of the Irish Catholic church Cardinal Sean Brady.
“I have had such a bad experience with priests that I can’t talk to any of them”- Brendan Boland yesterday with his wife Martina
The victim Brendan Boland talks about the abuse from Brendan Smyth when he was just shy of his 14th birthday at Christmas 1974. The paedophile priest Brendan Smyth had been sexually abusing him for two to three years at that stage.
Smyth had brought him, a Belfast boy and three girls to a Wombles concert in Dublin. Afterwards Smyth shared a room with the two boys, who also featured in this week’s BBC programme. First he abused Mr Boland, then he signalled the other boy to come to his bed.
“I was lying listening to what was going on. And I said to myself, ‘This is not going to happen again, I have got to do something. I don’t like what’s going on here’. That’s when the penny dropped for me.”
Mr Boland spoke in a hotel in Belfast with his wife Martina by his side. “She’s a rock,” he said.
He is unimpressed with the response so far of Cardinal Seán Brady. “I think at the moment he has no moral authority.”
Mr Boland works in London as an engineer for another man in the news these days, Rupert Murdoch, ensuring that the presses that print the Sun, London Times and other newspapers run sweetly.
This isn’t the only trauma to befall him and his family. His 17-year-old son Stephen was killed in a car crash in 2003 in England. “I had a lot of guilt over Stephen’s death. At that time I had my [compensation] case . . . and I blamed it on that, that this is punishment for me [for] standing up to Seán Brady and going against the church. I felt that it had something to do with that,” he explained.
“People have said to me, that’s a crazy idea. But you have to be in my shoes to understand how I think sometimes.”
Cardinal Brady “is not fit for the job he is in; he should never have taken that job. Surely he should have realised that the information would come back and haunt him some day”, Mr Boland believes
Cardinal Brady has complained about elements of the programme, particularly the suggestion he was an investigator with the three-member canonical inquiry team that interviewed Brendan Boland in 1975 – rather than a notetaker, as the Catholic primate has asserted. “Everything in that programme was fact; we were very very careful in the way we did it . . . in my eyes he was the investigator,” said Mr Boland
Neither does the chain of command defence work with him: that Cardinal Brady fulfilled his duty by passing on the facts to his superiors and Smyth’s Norbertine order and that it was up to the Norbertines to stop Smyth.
Bottom line, as far as Mr Boland is concerned, is that he supplied names and addresses of children who were abused by Smyth to the inquiry team, and it was never passed on to their parents or the Garda or RUC. That resulted in two more boys being abused by Smyth, including the Belfast boy. Worse, Smyth subsequently abused the sister of that boy for seven years and also his four first cousins.
Neither does he accept suggestions that 1975 was a different time when there were no church or civil guidelines for handling such situations. Cardinal Brady should have contacted the parents, he said. “I was only 14 years of age, I knew it was wrong.”
Mr Boland has high praise for one of the three priests on the inquiry team to whom he initially reported the abuse in 1975. When he told the priest, who ran a youth club in Dundalk, he immediately brought him home to his parents and informed them.
“My father actually got sick. He had to go out to the garden and get physically sick.”
The experience is still having a huge impact on his father Frank, now aged 89. He was present in the building when his son was interviewed and sworn to secrecy by the inquiry team, but he was not allowed be with Brendan for that questioning.
“He just took it as ‘Yeah, okay, this is the way’.” He added: “My father is happy that this has come out now but he is also devastated. He’s thinking that he did not do enough. He’s saying to me, ‘you’re saying Seán Brady should have done this and that; well, I should have done this, I should have done that’. He is riddled with guilt.
“I have tried to reassure him. I have said I am not taking you away from your religion. The last thing I would want him is to lose his faith, and he hasn’t lost his faith . . .
“I have lost my faith in the people who preach it, but I still have my belief in God. I know that God is for all good, that there is no way he would punish you for destroying evil.
“But I have no time for priests. I have had such a bad experience with priests that I can’t talk to any of them. I know there are some good ones, but I can’t tell who is good and who is not good.”
He is still angry at the excruciatingly intimate nature of the questioning that he was subjected to – which Cardinal Brady acknowledged was “intrusive” – being asked had he had such experiences before, did “seed” come from his body, did he know what an erection was.
Mr Boland still has a sense of humour. “I did not know what an erection was.” And he laughs at his innocence. “Imagine saying that to some 14-year-old today!”
He said he was “really scared” about getting involved in the documentary.
“But the programme helped me because I was overwhelmed by the support of the Irish people. It is just incredible. It was really comforting. I feel good now.”
Europe’s largest software company is creating 250 new jobs in Galway & Dublin Ireland
The largest SOFTWARE company in Europe is to create 250 new jobs in Ireland through an investment of €110 million.
SAP will expand its operations at Citywest in Dublin, offering sales, services and global support, while expanding its cloud services centre in Galway.
The move will mean an extra 150 jobs in Dublin and a further 100 in Galway. The company already employs 1,200 people in Ireland.
The positions will cater for jobseekers with qualifications including computer science, engineering, maths, languages and business.
SAP Ireland managing director Liam Ryan said the move was “all about gearing SAP up for the company’s next wave of technology innovation to meet business needs in the areas of cloud computing, mobile applications and high performing database technology”.
Ryan said Ireland had “provided SAP with a highly-skilled and innovative workforce”.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who announced the jobs this morning, said the expansion “contributes to Ireland’s growing reputation as a global hub for the digital industry”.
Kenny said the decision to further expand operations in Ireland “demonstrates the real value of an economically stable business environment and Ireland’s position in Europe when it comes to attracting the overseas operations of major technology companies like SAP”.
The positions were created with the input of IDA Ireland, whose chief executive Barry O’Leary described the expansion as a “great tribute to the capability, commitment and professionalism of the Irish workforce”.
Details of the redesign for Ireland’s National Children’s Hospital announced today
Revised plans for the new National Children’s Hospital have been submitted by the Mater Hospital Group.
The plans proposed by the Group – consisting of the Mater, Temple Street Children’s Hospital and the Rotunda Maternity Hospital – suggest the hospital be built on the Mater site but that the height of the complex should be reduced to six storeys to comply with requirements, RTE reports.
It says that the selection of another site would impose a delay of at least two and a half years.
The original plan for the hospital was rejected by An Bord Pleanála last February, on the grounds that it would constitute over-development of the hospital and have a negative impact on the city skyline.
It is proposed that the Children’s Hospital and Adult’s Hospital would be linked by a corridor, according to TV3.
Other proposals have been submitted for the project: last month, Tallaght Hospital and South Dublin County Council formally submitted their joint bid for the new National Children’s Hospital to be co-located on a publicly-owned site adjacent to the existing Tallaght Hospital Facility.
Another submission suggested building hospital on a 50-acre site at Lissenhall, Swords, County Dublin.
Technology giant HP plans huge development to create 200 new jobs in Galway
Plans for a massive new office block in Galway for technology giant Hewlett Packard – which will accommodate more than 200 new employees – are set to be finalised within the coming weeks, the Connacht Tribune has learned.
The 90,000 square foot purpose-built block will be one of the biggest in Galway and will accommodate more than 800 people – at the moment, the company employs around 600 people.
It’s seen as a massive vote of confidence in HP’s future in Galway, and will see around 100 people employed in the construction stage, and is likely to see more than 200 new highly-skilled workers employed within the facility.
A planning application is likely to be finalised within the next eight weeks and will then be submitted to Galway County Council, and if approved, the building would take at least 12 months to construct.
Tamboran Resources Fracking firm
Gives €20,000 (A Bribe) to Manorhamilton Leitrim forum
A Bribe 
A forum and group of business people in north Leitrim have defended their decision to accept a €20,000 donation from a company which wishes to carry out hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the area.
The Manorhamilton Enterprise Forum, made up of “hardworking, decent, honest people struggling to make ends meet in the biggest recession we have known”, said it would not be deterred by those opposed to fracking.
The donation was given following a meeting with Tamboran Resources representatives on April 2nd. The forum, which represents businesses in Manorhamilton, accepted the money to fund a feasibility study and planning application for a hotel in the town.
Forum chairman Tony Feeney said the donation did not mean it approved of the controversial process of fracking, which opponents claim will contaminate the environment and lead to industrial over-development in Co Leitrim.
Fracking involves pumping high pressure water into deep wells to liberate gas reserves. Tamboran has stated that it intends to centre activities on a Border area surrounding north Leitrim and south Fermanagh.
Mr Feeney said the forum would be guided by the decision of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as to whether or not fracking was safe. The EPA is currently carrying out a study on the potential environmental impact of fracking in Ireland.
Local Sinn Féin TD Michael Colreavy said it was a “joke” for the forum to accept a donation to build a hotel when fracking could destroy the tourism potential of the area.
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