The Murphy report is an inked dossier of shameful abuse of power in Irish swimming over 30 years. It is a crime any child should ever be abused. It is a disgrace that swimming facilitated systematic abuse by hiding behind bureaucracy, failed to police itself and was completely ignorant to the risks of sexual abuse in a sport where the average age and the majority of membership is under 18 years.

Everyone knows the extraordinary efforts required and demanded of swimmers involved in trying to achieve success. Swimming 16,000 metres a day can be made seem attractive when rewarded with international success but 16,000 metres a day, perpetual fatigue, disillusionment and lost teenage years is the usual reality.

What was hidden until now were the stories of swimmers being locked in their rooms in Australia, in theory forcing them to rest and not expend energy outside the pool. In reality, conveniently isolating vulnerable swimmers.

Personally, I returned from that training camp seven days early having had enough. Two other swimmers did likewise. We were accused of not being able to "hack-it" Other swimmers were encouraged by the coaches, praised for sticking with conditions while supposedly better swimmers had returned home.

On that trip to Australia, I only saw the Sydney Opera House because I asked the taxi driver to drive past it on the way to the airport. There were several swimmers who saw nothing of Australia but the inside of their locked room in Canberra for two weeks.

It was accepted, never questioned. If anyone ever dared question, they were punished.

Authority figures like Gibney, O'Rourke and McCann certainly had things very well controlled.

I personally witnessed an international swimmer, aged 28, married with children, sent to bed by Gibney for breaking curfew in a bar at 10 p.m., one week prior to competition.

And this was despite being told by others that he had permission to have a drink.

The next day at a team meeting the same swimmer was threatened with being sent home if it happened again. Anticipating this kangaroo court, the swimmer already had his bags packed and actually demanded to be sent home. That swimmer never swam for Ireland again.

McCann was elected an officer of the Leinster Branch of the Swimming Association in his absence because he was being questioned in Tallaght Garda station about the murder of his wife and child.

All this despite the fact that the rules of the association state a nominee has to be present in-person to accept the nomination.

This was the same Frank McCann who had an international swimmer banned for six months for verbal abuse despite the fact that there were no witnesses and it was McCann's word against the swimmer's word.

The swimmer did actually curse at McCann but the swimming association believed McCann and only invited the swimmer along to their meeting where they discussed the event, to hear his punishment, not to defend himself.

When I started swimming the poolside was awash with gossip and innuendo about two coaches and their swimmers.

For 22 years, the swimming association hid behind the sound legal reasoning that it "had never had an official complaint" and it did nothing.

It has been "officially" aware of the situation for the last six years and again it sat and did little because, although it had an official complaint, the matter was either sub judice or "in the hands of their lawyers".

It has done little to help victims, offered no advice and has gone so far as to try to discredit the persons making allegations.

When I first made swimming officials aware of allegations against Gibney in December 1992, their initial concern was whether or not a person accompanying me was, in fact, a lawyer. No expression of horror was ever expressed, no offer of help forthcoming.

They sat on the fence throughout the Gibney affair, only quashing his honorary life membership this year due to public pressure. In their eyes, he had done no wrong.

But for public opinion, I'm convinced that should Gibney return to Ireland in the morning there are people within the association who would welcome him back into the fold. After his court battle, some in the IASA organised for him to run several swimming clinics in Northern Ireland. That sent a loud message to members of the association.

Minister McDaid's recent strong words of condemnation of the association represent the first time any person in an official Government capacity has expressed horror at the handling of the entire situation.

The victims of child abuse have waited a long time for someone in power to lay the blame squarely at the door of the system which allowed three men such complete domination, control and power.

The association must do the honourable thing and publicly apologise to the victims it has betrayed. Three men perpetrated these crimes, many men knowingly ignored them.

Gary O'Toole, a double Olympian, won a silver medal for Ireland in the 1989 European Swimming Championships.