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Regional secretary with the National Education Union
‘Sometimes I wish I’d never spoken out: but I did it for the child in me’
Louise Raw talks to MICK FINNEGAN, a child abuse whistleblower whose ordeal is still not over, as 12 months on from the expected publication of an official judge’s report into the complaints, he and other survivors are still waiting
Mick Finnegan

WE LIKE to think that once a wrong has been exposed, the worst is over for the victim. There will be justice, we imagine: then help, healing, closure. Something like a happy ending. 

Mick Finnegan might look like proof of that. In good shape at 40 — he’s taken up running and keeps shattering personal bests — Mick is a highly regarded mental health advocate, working towards a master’s degree in advanced child protection at the University of Kent.

But he’s also a whistleblower who broke a child abuse scandal that rocked Dublin. And because he was one of those children — and because of the torturous, mentally gruelling nature of the process of seeking justice — he’s also currently homeless, sleeping rough and in recovery for alcohol addiction. 

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