February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN – The Irish Amateur Swimming Association has rejected suggestions that it should voluntarily disband following a damning report on child sex abuse in the sport that claims two previously unidentified coaches assaulted young swimmers.
The government ordered the inquiry from senior counsel Roderick Murphy last February after the conviction of former Olympic swimming coach Derry O’Rourke, who was jailed for a horrific catalogue of sexual abuse on young swimmers.
Sports Minister Dr. Jim McDaid said the most horrendous finding in the 165-page report was that children thought it was a normal part of their training.
Gardai are investigating claims that there are two other pedophile coaches and the director of public prosecutions is examing Murphy’s report.
The new allegations involve serious abuse, including rape.
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McDaid said the report painted a picture of ineptitude, inadequacy and a total systems failure within the IASA. “You get quite angry reading it,” he said.
Murphy’s report details abuse by O’Rourke and another coach who succeeded in a 1994 judicial review of having charges against him dropped because of the delay since the alleged offenses occurred.
O’Rourke, 51, was jailed for 12 years in January after he pleaded guilty to 29 specimen sex abuse charges against 11 young girls swimmers, some as young as 11.
O’Rourke, who was a champion swimmer himself, was the Olympic coach for the Moscow Games in 1980 and again in Barcelona in 1992.
He had originally faced more than 90 charges but some victims withdrew complaints. Gardai said up to 30 children may have been abused in a number of locations, including a poolside room known as the “Chamber of Horrors.”
The report lists more than 100 recommendations for radically tightening up supervision in amateur swimming.
Murphy concludes: “In a sport dominated by standard times, there were inadequate standards for behavior. No one seemed to question the merits of imposing objectives which set high standards for children in competition without having regard to overall development.
“Where the joy of a swimmer is replaced by the gratification of an adult, it ceases to be a sport”.
The IASA, whose funding – _230,000 last year – was cut off by the minister, decided after a meeting last weekend to revamp its systems and has set up a steering committee to organize the restructuring.
The association president, Mary O’Malley, said it had taken on a child-protection officer and would be reporting to the minister later
this week. She said she had been shocked by the report.
“Nobody expects to be involved in a sport where that type of thing could happen,” she said. “It would be our aim that it would never happen again in the future. What has happened is appalling, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
She told RTE news she understood public demands that someone should be held accountable for what happened and they intended to “turn the association inside out and revamp it.”
They have already been in contact with the Gardai about new allegations of pedophile abuse and further discussions will be held.