John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Thank you very much. I presume that committee members will want to ask questions after me, so I will go ahead, and I might speak again afterwards, once everyone else is done.

I thank Mr. O'Brien and his officials for coming in today. In the third line of his opening statement, Mr. O'Brien referred to allegations of abuse and neglect "of the most egregious nature". Thanks to a number of national newspaper reports, the nature of the alleged abuse has been publicised. It is worth repeating that information here today because it has never been articulated or verbalised at this committee. According to those reports, and I know this to be the case from meetings I have had in my own constituency, we are dealing with allegations of rape with implements. These are allegations of horrific sexual abuse. At previous meetings, I alluded to the fact that this was probably the worst example of abuse I had ever come across.

It is worth pointing out what has been publicised and the horrendous nature of what we are talking about here. Mr. O'Brien referred in his opening statement to allegations of abuse and neglect "of the most egregious nature". He admitted in his report to serious poor care failings and has made apologies. Can Mr. O'Brien, to start with, give us a description of the failings he is talking about and the kind of neglect he referred to as taking place over the course of 25 or 30 years? What exactly, in his own mind, is he apologising for? Can we start with that?