Top five Irish scandals of the decade

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The decade saw the speedy rise and the equally swift demise of the Celtic Tiger.

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3. Ryan Report
After nine years of research the report published by Justice Ryan detailed horrifying abuse that about 35,000 children suffered in institutions run by the Catholic Church. Throughout the twentieth century up to the 1980s, thousands of Irish children were placed in reformatories, industrial schools and workhouses and endured violence and sexual abuse at the hands of certain religious orders.

Many of those children emigrated, and the Irish government now faces the need to address the issue of compensation.

4. Murphy Report
This “Report by Commission of Investigation into the handling by Church and State authorities of allegations and suspicions of child abuse against clerics of the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin” unearthed more awful truths for the Catholic Church to face up, to and has shaken belief in a country long known for its loyalty to Catholicism.  Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is still dealing with the fall-out from the report, including a spate of resignations of bishops who, the report said, did not prevent the abuse. As recently as Christmas Eve, two more of Dublin’s auxiliary bishops resigned.

5. Housing boom and bust
Nothing illegal occurred this time but what happened is still scandalous. The Irish government offered tax relief to encourage the construction of property. Caught up in an era of excess, Irish builders constructed reams of housing estates all over the country – often in areas that did not have proper facilities for large populations. The result is that Ireland’s countryside is now littered with of empty houses; hundreds of thousands of them are unoccupied.

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