Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)

Senator Norris gave a passionate speech in which he raised a number of issues. The fact that there is a prohibition on posters speaking out against homophobic behaviour by school students in religious institutions is another example of how the abuse is continuing to some degree.

One can but wonder who is leading those 18 religious orders because they are so out of touch. I spoke yesterday about the fact that regardless of whether they knew it then, they would have to bear a bigger share of the burden of the €1.3 billion in compensation. Senators spoke yesterday about whether the cost should be split on a 50:50 basis, given that the State is equally culpable in that it sent the children to the schools, it did not police the schools when the abuse was brought to its attention and it covered it up. For that reason the State must pay its share. The religious orders have not yet handed over the properties they were supposed to hand over as part of the agreement.

The fact that at this time the State is responsible for the lion's share of the €1.3 billion means the religious orders are continuing the abuse because those funds could be used to help the vulnerable today, such as those children who are in need or who need to be taken into care. The funds should be used for such purposes but because we have to pay for the sins of the past we cannot help people in the present. The religious institutions are insisting they have done a deal and they will not renegotiate it. By the end of the week I am sure they will all have seen the errors of their ways.

What annoys me more than anything else is not that we had so many who were perpetrating these crimes but that there was a huge cover up. Who knew what, when did they know it and why did they say nothing? For every abuser, there were thousands who remained silent. They may not have participated, they may not helped in any way, but their silence was a help. As we know from working here, when one is working in one place the stories go around and one hears the rumours, yet they all stay silent. Those who were brave enough to speak out, and the sad fact is these people were few and far between, they too were punished by their orders. They were sent abroad or on punishment details in their institutions. Those who perpetrated crimes were also moved on as soon as reports came through about them.

How is it that we did not know about these things in this country? Investigations into child abuse in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand pointed out that the Christian Brothers and Irish religious orders were the main protagonists. They were singled out by judicial investigations in South Africa. Why did we not wonder if that was happening here? There was a headline on France 24 last night about the Irish sex abuse scandal, and it makes one think about how this is replicated around the world. Our shame as a country is deserved because when we knew it, we ignored it.

I remember launching a book on the Kerry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre five years ago, which was an organisation starved of funds. It is still starved of funds today and 0.1% of that €1.3 billion would help the centre to help those who are now going to revisit their terrible past. For the 15,000 victims of whom we are aware, there are probably ten times that number who were sexually or physically abused. While it might be possible to bury it for a time, it cannot be buried forever. This publicity, which will no doubt go on for weeks and months, will bring the past to life for all those who never spoke about it to anyone. Regarding the religious orders offering support, it is difficult to imagine who would take help from those who not only supplied the abuser, but also ensured the abuser was never prosecuted. This is the big question that faces us.

It is not about the money. When €1.3 billion is divided between all the victims, it is small money. It is a small token that will not do much. All the money should be spent on counselling because these people will need it. When one thinks of all the money that will be diverted to pay off those victims, then that is the tragedy. We are looking at a church that covered it up. As a result of all the abuse, those victims turned to alcohol as a crutch. Many of them committed suicide. As an institution, the Roman Catholic Church as good as killed these people. By not informing the police and by not bringing to justice those who perpetrated the crimes, they as good as killed them.

People have referred to these institutions as concentration camps and spoken about the Holocaust. The one thing about the Holocaust was that the German people denied and claimed they did not know. However, everyone heard the rumours, even in a society that was covered by wartime propaganda. In a country with a free press, people knew but they did not want to know.

I remember a case that came to light a few years ago. I was sitting or standing at the back of a church — I do not go up to the front — and I looked at the priest and wondered whether he would stay silent as well if my niece or nephew were in harm's way. If he knew of a priest who was sexually abusing children in a school that my niece or nephew attended, would that priest stay silent? Would he be like all those other people in the religious orders who stayed silent when they knew about someone in their order who was abusing children? That is fundamentally unfair to those great priests who have done gone great work. They face an enormous burden today because the collective guilt, perpetrated by many through either the abuse itself or the silence of those who knew, is a shame shared by all in each of those institutions.

For all the great work done by CORI and for all the errors it pointed out that were made by the Government in protecting the vulnerable, any statement it makes from now on is not worth the paper it is written on. This is because its response has been appalling. CORI's members knew this report was coming for the past ten years. They knew the extent of the abuse a long time before we did. They had all the files. They tried to stop us getting them, so they knew the extent of the abuse, yet they still lectured politicians on how we should treat the most vulnerable. When they were given the protection of the most vulnerable, they committed the most heinous crimes, and their silence was possibly the worst crime.