Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

The Minister of State referred to the commission's conclusions and listed some of them as follows:

Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from ... Sexual abuse was endemic in boys' institutions ... Children were frequently hungry and food was inadequate, inedible and badly prepared in many schools ... A disturbing element of the evidence before the Commission was the level of emotional abuse that disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children were subjected to ... Separating siblings and restrictions on family contact were profoundly damaging for family relationships.

The one aspect of this matter which all the reports that have been compiled in recent years do not reflect is the hurt the people who were placed in the various institutions endured and the difficulties they have experienced in the context of trying to come to terms with what happened to them when they were children.

I was a Member of the Houses when the Residential Institutions Redress Board was originally established and I recall speaking to many of the victims and to the groups which represent them. I have never seen so many adults crying. A number of individuals who worked in the Oireachtas informed me that they had also gone through the institutions in question. Everyone to whom I spoke had a story to tell. All of these people talked about their frustration regarding the inadequacy of the process relating to the investigation of what occurred in the various institutions.

What the House is doing today - by means of the Bill before it - is stating that the board has done its work and that it is time to move on. I am of the view that the redress board, which has many flaws, still has work to do. The Minister of State indicated that the effect of the legislation will be to remove the power of the board to consider applications made on or after 17 September 2011. He also stated that the board has been "accepting applications for the past eight and a half years, a period which is considered more than adequate for this purpose".

The Minister of State's comments come against the background of the publication of the Murphy report into the diocese of Cloyne. One of the people who is quoted in that report refers to the fact that it took her 40 years to come forward and tell her story. The redress board has only been in place for eight and a half years and now the Government is stating that its work is done. There is something wrong with the process in this regard. As Deputy Smith's comments indicate, everyone is concerned in respect of this matter. Is it time the board concluded its work or should we make allowances for that work to continue?

The redress board is supposed to be about more than giving people compensation. It was supposed to be motivated by compassion and concern for those who were abused while under the care of the State. In addition, it was one way of obtaining recognition for those who suffered such dreadful abuse. The board was established three years after the "State of Fear" television documentary was broadcast. The latter caused widespread public outrage and gave rise to the then Taoiseach issuing an apology. At that time I was amazed by the number of public representatives who stated that they were not aware of what had happened. I grew up in Dublin and before I ever became an elected representative I was aware of young people who had been through certain institutions. All of those individuals had stories to tell in respect of their experiences.

I am of the generation of people who were hit with leather straps, canes and fists while attending school. However, my experience pales in comparison to those of the people who went through the institutions in question. I recall speaking to one woman whose sons attended one of these institutions as day pupils. The suffering and emotional and sexual abuse those boys endured was not considered by the redress board. The woman in question informed me that she was a cleaner at the particular school which her sons attended and that she was always struck by fact that the children there were all extremely sad. She said that all she wanted to do was put her arms around them and hug them. She also indicated that she thought that all that was wrong with them was the fact that they needed someone to love them. Unfortunately, it later emerged that the children at the school were being sexually, emotionally and physically abused. She did not discover until many years later that her two sons were physically, mentally and sexually abused while they attended the school.

When the woman to whom I refer spoke to me, she cried because there was no recognition in respect of what she had endured. She was not seeking compensation - all she wanted was some form of recognition to the effect that what happened was not her fault. Neither the redress board nor the system we established provided an avenue for that women and the many other parents like her to seek recognition for their awful plight.

The report on the Cloyne diocese does not relate to the distant past, it refers to recent events. The scandal in respect of the reports in to the events at Cloyne, Ferns and elsewhere is that the relevant entity which ran the institutions in question protected itself with regard to the abuse, etc., which occurred in those institutions. It was considered more important that the reputation of the entity be protected. Unfortunately, the State has taken a similar approach during this entire process. Deputy Smith referred to what occurred at the Bethany Home. A woman who suffered neglect and serious injury while in the Morning Star hostel and who protested outside the gates of this institution for 18 months - she even went on hunger strike at one point - was not granted recognition under the redress board. Many people have been affected by what occurred in these institutions.

As already stated, granting compensation is not the sole purpose for which the redress board was set up. I have a number of criticisms regarding the process under which it was established. It is clear that the amount of money some people received in respect of the abuse they endured was inadequate. Individuals who brought their cases to the High Court received huge settlements. The barristers and solicitors who took these people's cases made massive amounts of money. However, many of those who were affected by what occurred in these institutions could not take proceedings in the High Court. The redress board was meant to cater for such individuals but many difficulties arose in respect of the way it operated.

The main point I wish to make relates to why the redress board's work is being brought to an end now. The board has only been in operation for eight and a half years. The report into the diocese at Cloyne took ten years to complete. The Minister of State referred to placing advertisements in certain newspapers in Britain and indicated that the wider diaspora throughout the world would also be informed in this way with regard to the fact that the board's work is coming to an end. When the Ryan report was published in 2009, many of the Irish centres in Britain were inundated with queries from people seeking to discover how they might obtain redress. The figures indicate that many applications for redress are still being processed.

According to Right of Place, at least 150,000 children and teenagers went through orphanages, industrial schools and centres for young offenders, with many suffering abuse at the hands of religious orders and others in charge of their care. An estimated 100,000 left Ireland afterwards. At least half of these individuals are believed to have travelled to the US but only a fraction of them are thought to be aware of the existence of the redress board. I do not want to be approached a year from now by someone stating he or she did not know about what is proposed in the Bill. I am sure there are people in Australia and other countries who do not have a clue about what is happening. It will be wrong if those individuals are denied a means by which they can tell their stories.

Some survivors' groups have talked about the level of compensation, but the main issue is that they want recognition of what happened to them so that they can move on from that. The difficulty I have with the legislation is that there is a cut-off date, but perhaps on Committee Stage the Minister can expand on or explain how individuals who have been left out of the loop with regard to this redress and recognition can be part of it.

I welcome the fact that the Minister is seeking 50% compensation contributions from the religious orders. At the time the decision was made, I and many others believed it was a shoddy deal and a bad deal for Irish taxpayers. I also have difficulties with regard to many of the religious orders. My colleague, Deputy Ó Caoláin, revealed recently that three out of the four orders have received a total of €87 million from the HSE in the past five years alone. Reports have also disclosed the extent of the orders' property dealings during the so-called boom years. For example, the Sisters of Mercy made €165 million in land sales and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity earned €61.8 million from the lands surrounding the mass grave of the Magdalene victims discovered in 1993. The contrast between these sums and the funds made available to the laundry survivors could not be starker. They received no pay for their years of forced labour, are in receipt of no pension and were excluded from claiming from the Residential Institutions Redress Board. Is there another mechanism the Minister will consider in that regard? We accept it as a given that there have been many good people in the religious orders and no one wants to bankrupt those elderly religious who have no pension or to take funds away from people in the last years of life. Clearly, there must be some balance in that regard.

The State has a huge responsibility as the representative guardian of the interests of the citizens of Ireland to ensure that victims of institutional abuse are given every opportunity to seek meaningful restitution. The fear is that the winding up of the redress scheme will prevent this from happening. I urge the Minister to reconsider this Bill and to consider ensuring the following that there be recognition from the State that victims have been wronged; that there be a public apology to all the victims; that a statutory compensation scheme mechanism will ensure appropriate levels of compensation that accord with the values of compensation obtained in the courts system; that a report and recommendation are issued and implemented in order to ensure that mistakes of the past cannot be repeated; that necessary health care treatments are provided to persons affected; that legislation is enacted to prevent a repetition of such a health care catastrophe; and that a mechanism is established to recognise what happened in the Magdalene laundries.

My concern with regard to this set-up is that people will turn up down the line who have been left out. The Minister of State said that eight and a half years is long enough, but we know that for some people who suffered through those awful days, eight, ten, 20 or 30 years will not be enough. What is to be done? Should everything be put on hold? There should be some mechanism for those people to get some kind of recognition when it suits them, not when it suits the State. We need to consider that. Despite the financial difficulties facing the country, we owe these people. We owe them answers. We turned our backs on them in the past and I believe that through this Bill we turn our backs on them again.

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