REPORTER: Evan Williams
John Kelly is going back to a place he wishes he had never seen, but can never forget. At 12, John's brother gave him a stolen chocolate - and for that, John was sent to a place of punishment run by Catholic brothers.
JOHN KELLY, ABUSE VICTIM: I was emotionally abused, physically abused on a regular basis. I got strapped on the hand. That was a daily occurrence. Punched, kicked...
This is where John was held.
JOHN KELLY: There's the fucking gates - this is where you would come in.
Daingean is a former British Army barracks run effectively as a child prison run by Catholic orders for over 100 years.
JOHN KELLY: This is to give you the impression it's a nice place. Nobody was allowed to go beyond these doors. That's when the horrors begin.
John was held here against his mother's will for two years. Within his first few days, he saw a brother punch a handicapped child.
JOHN KELLY: Got his knuckles and kept... He was panting. He only stopped when he fell back like that, exhausted.
Discipline was even worse inside these walls. Boys were beaten, flogged and abused on a daily basis. Today, John makes a chilling discovery.
JOHN KELLY: People would be locked up in here for misdemeanours for varying lengths of time. You might even get food in here.
Children had their names replaced with numbers - evidence of their attempt to say "I'm here" can still be seen today.
JOHN KELLY: 461, 451... I was 253... This went on, obviously - there was lots of people locked up in here.
Then he took me to a place where his life changed forever. A brother forced him into this shower and raped him, starting months of sexual abuse.
JOHN KELLY: I got a whack across the fucking face. I couldn't believe it. Just now - it's unbelievable, now.
And then the brothers' mockery began.
JOHN KELLY: "You're crying. A little bit of blood! The blood of Christ - Christ died for you." 'Cause I was bleeding on my back.
REPORTER: Were you penetrated?
JOHN KELLY: Yeah.
Across Ireland, the state sent 173,000 children to places like this for being orphaned, missing school, or just being poor. Many were sexually abused by religious brothers. On the streets of central Dublin, I've come to meet Colm O'Gorman.
COLM O’GORMAN, ABUSE VICTIM: At this stage, I was very seriously depressed and quite suicidal.
For three years as a boy, he was raped by a parish priest, and has a powerful insight into the mind of a child abused by a man with religious authority.
COLM O’GORMAN: How bad must I be if this good, godly man is inflicting this extreme suffering on me? How awful must I be?
At 17, he fled and ended up here on these same streets, selling sex with men for a bed and a hot meal. Then, eight years ago, he took his complaint to the police and started a national campaign for justice.
COLM O’GORMAN: What I didn't realise was the scale of what we were heading into. Within about six weeks the, detective investigating the case came back to me to say that there were another five men who had now made statements as well - in effect, about the same priest. In effect, all he had to do was put out the question, and all of this information started coming. It was that close to the surface. It just needed the question to be asked.
BERNADETTE FAHEY, ABUSE VICTIM: We used to sneak out occasionally. This is the church...
Other victims have also spent years campaigning for justice. Bernadette Fahey was held here at Goldenbridge Industrial School for six years. The state had ruled her single mother could not take care of her.
BERNADETTE FAHEY: It was full of terror. People were beating up children. Adults were beating up children for nothing. Bigger children were beating up smaller children 'cause they thought that's what they were supposed to do.
Bernadette published one of the first books detailing years of abuse. She lodged an official police complaint against the school's Catholic authorities.
BERNADETTE FAHEY: They wrote me to say that the director has directed there should not be a prosecution against any person mentioned in this file.
Finally, after a series of TV programs exposed the extent of the abuse, Ireland's government had to act. It officially apologised to the victims.
BERTIE AHERN, IRISH PRIME MINISTER: On behalf of the state, and all the citizens of the state, the government wishes to make a sincere and long-overdue apology to the victims of childhood abuse.
And it called a commission of inquiry into child abuse in church-run schools.
THE RYAN COMMISSION: And the latter, bringing the story of childcare up to date from the publication of the Kennedy Report in 1970.
It would run for nine years. Marian Shanley was one of the commissioners.
MARIAN SHANLEY, COMMISSIONER: This was the room that the hearings were conducted in.
1,500 victims gave evidence. They either told their story to a confidential committee, or confronted their abusers in a committee that investigated the claims. All of it was held in private.
MARIAN SHANLEY: We had the view that offering this facility of allowing people to come in, tell their story, confront the perpetrator - and they confronted the perpetrator, and there was, in many cases, they were in the room and they were saying, "You did this." You know? It was powerful. It was a powerful moment.
Many victims thought this was finally their moment of justice, the day of reckoning for their abuser.
COLM O’GORMAN: There was a very clear expectation from day one on the part of victims, because they were told it by the state. The state undertook to investigate every single allegation that was brought to their attention to make findings a fact, and to name identified perpetrators of abuse.
But one of the main Catholic orders - the Christian Brothers - went to the High Court to stop the commission naming any of their members. This caused a major reappraisal of how they would run their commission.
MARIAN SHANLEY: Every individual who was being accused of sexual abuse, or any abuse of a child, will fight to protect their name. They will fight through the tribunal. They will fight through the courts. Every single individual case would have ended up as a battle. And we would be here still.
That angered victims like John Kelly, who felt the failure to name abusers allowed them to escape justice.
JOHN KELLY: That was the worst bit. Because people had waited 40, sometimes 50 years, to see their abusers in the dock, to see accountability, to see that something would happen. And to see these people named and shamed. None of that happened.
BERNADETTE FAHEY: The door is the same, but the handles are different.
Back at her old school, Bernadette Fahey tells me of a more recent distress - testifying at the commission. The accused and their religious orders all had lawyers, which meant the commission became as adverse aerial as a court.
BERNADETTE FAHEY: And it was really terrifying, because you're stressed, you're frightened, you're telling the truth, but you know that it is their job to pull apart your statement and make it look like you're lying.
MARIAN SHANLEY: That's the way it is. It's tough. And there's no way around that. And I think, to set up a commission which allowed somebody to simply come in, make the allegation and walk away unchallenged – would that have any meaning?
Other victims also felt let down by the commission.
REPORTER: This is the entrance to the dormitories?
TOM SWEENEY, ABUSE VICTIM: Now, you weren't allowed into to this entrance.
This is Arthane, another notorious former church-run industrial school for boys. At 12 years old, Tom Sweeney was sent here for missing school.
TOM SWEENEY: As you can see, we never got the sun around the other side. It was always in the dark.
For trying to escape, he was sent to a tougher school in Ireland's south.
TOM SWEENEY: There was a lot of sexual abuse at the school. Boys with boys, brothers with boys...
He was invited to speak at the commission, but only about Arthane. He was not able to have his claims about being raped at the second school investigated.
TOM SWEENEY: This was a legal submission.
At home, Tom shows me a formal complaint lodge would the commission by his barrister about the commission's failure to allow him to tell all his story. “The commission realised there was just too many complaints to deal with, so they took samples from each institution.”
REPORTER: What did you feel about the commission?
TOM SWEENEY: Well, I felt it was a failure. Because, I mean, after all, they were only dealing with so many cases. They weren't dealing with people that had complaints to make.
REPORTER: Did it lead to any prosecutions?
MARIAN SHANLEY: Oh, no. No. No. No. As far as I am aware, nobody is serving jail time because of having given evidence that we took in here, no.
REPORTER: And why is that?
MARIAN SHANLEY: If that person had been sexually abused, and he wanted to see criminal sanctions, that was a matter for the criminal courts. We were not a criminal process, and could never be. That was never our emit.
COLM O’GORMAN: It's an accepted principle that if people are engaging in a commission or a tribunal of inquiry of some form, the information or evidence that they give to that inquiry can't be used to then prosecutor them subsequent to that. The Irish Police could not take the report of the commission and go away and use that as evidence to secure prosecutions.
REPORTER: Why is that?
COLM O’GORMAN: It's not permissible in law.
Given his experience, it's not surprising Colm now fights for the rights of others as head of Amnesty International in Ireland. He investigated the commission's impact on actual criminal prosecutions.
COLM O’GORMAN: The reality is that a very large number of people committed really appalling crimes against children in this state, and have not been prosecuted for them, and will not be prosecuted for them.
JOHN KELLY: See how military everything is?
But for victims like John, the legal constraints of a commission are unimportant.
JOHN KELLY: If there's evidence, there's evidence. It doesn't matter whether it's in secret or whether it's in public. It has to be used.
REPORTER: That's why you didn't participate?
JOHN KELLY: That's why I didn't participate - I didn't see the point in going along, telling my - I might as well go into a confession box - tell my story, and the paper is thrown into the bin, and that's the end of it. There's no consequences for those who have privilege or immunity - how is there healing in that for me? I was told I would be healed. I'm not healed.
While many victims felt wounded by the commission's decisions, there was a startling result. It was only when the religious orders knew their members were protected from prosecution or being named that they revealed the extent of their knowledge of the abuse.
MARIAN SHANLEY: We had a lot of documentary evidence on contemprainious reports from the orders themselves.
REPORTER: About abuse?
MARIAN SHANLEY: Yeah. Yeah.
REPORTER: In their official records?
MARIAN SHANLEY: Yeah. And they gave all of that to us. They gave all of that to us.
Despite the many concerns about the commission, thousands marched through Dublin when the report was finally released.
COLM O’GORMAN: It found the most - and I don't use this word lightly - but the most horrific and really off-the-scale abuses of children - everything from rape and extreme physical violence and physical abuse to economic exploitation, to grave neglect and psychological abuse.
For victims, there was a sense of vindication. They had at last been believed. But many demanded compensation for the harm done to victims.
JOHN KELLY: The religious do not comply. The state should have financial penalties and other penalties imposed upon them, and strip them of everything. Simple as that.
The state and the Church agreed to pay compensation. But the Church moved quickly to limit its financial liability.
COLM O’GORMAN: The Irish Church did an extraordinary deal on the last day of an Irish government in 2002, where they secured a total indemnity for 120 million euro or so. The final cost of compensations for victims has been 1.3 or 1.4 billion euro. It's been described by the politicians as a sweetheart deal, done because of their relationships and influence with very senior politicians.
The Ryan Commission made Ireland search its soul and forced the government to address systemic institutional child abuse. Many of the commission's 20 recommendations for better child protection are being implemented.
COLM O’GORMAN: For the first time ever, child protection guidelines are now placed on a statutory footing. They have the force of law behind them here in Ireland. We're also going to see...
REPORTER: It's now a crime not to report a known abuse of a child?
COLM O’GORMAN: It will be a crime not to report abuse of a child in certain circumstances. But also we're going to see inspection of child protection services.
But everyone I spoke to here advised Australia to think very carefully what its commission is trying to achieve.
COLM O’GORMAN: There is every danger that the process will become mired in legal conflict and a volume of filings and papers that people can't even begin to imagine.
MARIAN SHANLEY: If you're having a situation where individuals are going to be named as perpetrators, they are entitled - and ought to be given - full legal representation to fight for their good name. They are entitled to that.
COLM O’GORMAN: My grave worry is that the inquiry itself is so broad that it will very quickly run into sand. I'd have that worry if it was just looking into abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia, never mind the whole question of child abuse in Australia more broadly in any scenario in any setting.
For some like John Kelly, there's a final indignity. He's discovered that less than one mile from where he lives the, man he says raped him now lives in a home for retired brothers.
JOHN KELLY: I feel like I want to go in and drag him out, because I didn't get any justice.
As John's experience shows, any commission must carefully consider what impact it has on victims if it's to give them any peace.
JOHN KELLY: The commission gave him sanctuary and gave him immunity. And he's in there enjoying his retirement. I have nightmares every night about what he did to me. How could they call that justice? Is that what they want to put Australians through? That's what they should think about. Think very carefully not to do what this commission here did it. Was a good commission, but it needs to be improved upon dramatically, drastically.
ANJALI RAO: Strong advice to the Australian royal commission from a man whose scars clearly have not healed. On our website, Colm O'Gorman - who was featured in Evan's story - has written an opinion piece with his message as well. There are also details of where to find support and advice if you need it:
Reporter/Camera
EVAN WILLIAMS
Producer
GEOFF PARISH
Researcher
EVE LUCAS
Editor
STEVE GIBBS
Original Music Composed by
VICKI HANSEN