Joe O'Toole (Independent)

My colleague, Senator Norris, has also done so. I have raised issues from the Kilkenny incest report to the Murphy report in 1998 and all the various matters along the way. I want to put on the record, without fear of contradiction, that every single proposal I ever brought forward on child protection was opposed left, right and centre, and I will provide the House with some examples.

One issue was the Stay Safe programme, a very simple programme to help children and which is in primary schools at present. That is one issue. Sex education programmes is another. Mandatory reporting, referred to earlier by Senator Healy Eames, is another. For six years I called for mandatory reporting in this House until I got tired of doing that. Nobody wanted to know. All I heard were the problems it would create. That was from Governments of all shades, not just one Government. This is an issue that goes across Governments.

I will tell the Minister a story about the Stay Safe programme. The Stay Safe programme was being developed by two women, a psychologist and a medical doctor, for the then Eastern Health Board. The funding for their project was withdrawn through the influence of the Knights of St. Columbanus. I cannot prove that but it has been told to me many times. Those people were left without any support for a hugely important programme.

I recall going to the executive of my union, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, which would often be criticised for being conservative and careful, and it was one of the proudest days of my membership of that union when the national executive voted £10,000, which was a decent amount of money in the 1980s, to allow those two women finish their programme, which they did. They prepared an excellent programme.

I then went to the Minister of the day, Deputy Mary O'Rourke, and showed her the programme. She said it appeared to be very important and progressive and something in which we should get involved. I asked her if we could do it and she told me she would run into problems in her own Department.

I want to put on record that she and I met with the crucial people. She set up a meeting in her ministerial office, for which she deserves credit, in Marlborough Street. We brought in the most senior person in primary education and the head of psychology in primary education — this is the time before NEPS — and the two women who developed the course. We asked the two women to make the presentation. Having made the presentation and knowing all the problems that would arise we had a discussion on the position. We looked at this man, who was a senior Knight of St. Columbanus and the most senior person in primary education, who had various reservations about the programme. I indicated that I thought it was a very good programme. The Minister for Education asked many searching questions and came to the conclusion that it was a very good programme. The officials highlighted the problems that might arise but the Minister said it was a solid programme to protect children and, to Deputy O'Rourke's credit, she said she wanted it in the schools. It took years for the programme to get into schools but it would never have got into them without her.

Around that time I attended the funeral of one of her parents — I believe it was her mother — in Athlone and I remember noticing afterwards that there was no bishop at the funeral of the mother of a Cabinet Minister. I found that interesting, but the Lenihans were never afraid of taking on the crozier, from the then Minister's grandfather down, and they deserve credit for that.