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A Thread: The hardest part of actually wanting to be part of your family was the constant rejection. I remember the first couple of weeks sleeping rough and knocking on the door only to watch the lights being switched off and everyone pretending they weren't home. 1/16
Ended up sleeping at the back of the church & remember Stella Joyce putting me up for a bit. She still sees if I'm ok. I'm best mates with her son Robbie.For the best part of over 20 years my family thought I lied. My Dad kicked the fuck out of me because I went to the Garda 2/16
That's just not the done thing. We don't do that cause where I'm from we're not rats. I didn't know what to do or what to say because a man I trusted raped me. I was a child. He sexually abused over a number of years & the organisations members "knew but they didn't know" 3/16
I have spent over 20 years living with this and I have missed out on what most of you value and cherish. A family. I never really experienced much of that. Nearest I had to a Da was a Salvation Army Officer who pulled me off the streets in Dublin. He believed in me. 4/16
He gave me hope & a job & is the nearest thing I had to a "father". Noel Kenny from Dolphins Barn comes close. Spent a few Christmases with him & his wife Sharon still to this day they ask how I'm doing. The point I'm trying to make. Is that if you're trying to build a home. 5/16
No matter what you're going through, with the right support you'll get there. I'm so close to achieving that it's unreal & I use to eat out of bins, wake up to wankers pissing on me when I slept rough at the bottom of Grafton Street & now I'm studying in Trinity. 6/16
I finally got closure when Tusla and an independent panel upheld a founded outcome against my rapist. The investigation enabled me to mend some bridges with the family. Even got to have a pint with my Dad before he passed away last month. 7/16
But the hardest part isn't forgiving my father or family for rejecting me. The hardest thing to deal with lately is the John's Ambulance inability to accept responsibility for what happened to me and other children that they were meant to protect. 8/16
This peadophile was prolific and allegations about him go back as far as the 1960s. The Johns Ambulance tried to erase him from their history books and photoshopped him out of their 100 year centenary celebration book. A copy you can see in the national library of Ireland. 9/16
The Garda tried so hard to lock him up. Back in the early 2000s and more recently when multiple victims came forward but still that wasn't enough for the DPP. Which is hard pill to swallow when you've got other victims saying they were abused too. 10/16
So then you go to the politicians. Hoping for change. Wishing for someone to listen to you. Most don't want to know. But some did, Anne Rabbitte was fantastic and relentless with PQs and asking those difficult questions. Trying to hold the organisation to account. 11/16
But all we got is that they have a compliant child safeguarding statement. Which is great but it didn't have that back then and I don't think that should whitewash over their inability to protect children all those years ago. 12/16
I've asked two ministers for children, two ministers for justice and many others for help. Nobody wants to deal with it and I just can't get my head around why this country has a shit record when it comes to child protection. Victims have to drag organisations to court. 13/16
Sometimes they have to take the government to court as well. It's abhorrent and re-traumatising. So I'm asking for your help. Will you write to your local TD and ask them to help me hold them to account. I don't want to spend the next 20 years fighting. 14/16
I want to spent the next 20 years God willing building a home, graduating from college, getting married and maybe even be a father. It's so hard and demoralising trying to get help when those in charge don't want to help me or the other victims. 15/16
So if you can spare 15/20 minutes write to your local TD or Senator and ask them what they will do to ensure this doesn't continue to happen because victims shouldn't have to be the ones to hold organisations or rapists to account. 16/16
