Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

On behalf of my party, I wish to be associated with Deputy Kenny's and the Taoiseach's expressions of sympathy to the family of Frances Sheridan. I greatly doubt whether another insider review is what is required in what is manifestly a dysfunctional service.

I return to a question I sought to raise in the House on a number of occasions in respect of the reason the Government decided it should apportion liability for people abused in residential institutions on the basis of capping the liability of religious congregations at €128 million, while the liability of the taxpayer was unlimited. Now that the Laffoy interim report has been published, it is clear in terms of the discovery Ms Justice Laffoy sought to make, that her commission was seeking to make a judgment on the same point. She sought discovery to establish the basis on which the Government decided to assume liability for all cases, irrespective of circumstance, and the basis on which it decided that there should be a cap of €128 million. She was refused discovery. Was the reason for this refusal the same as the reason no papers were presented to Government, namely because the papers do not exist?

Did the Government do any State audit of the liability in these circumstances? We know the Comptroller and Auditor General did such an audit and concluded the liability could reach €1,000 million. He stated Government approval was given on the basis of an oral presentation and that no memorandum was submitted to Government by the then Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Woods. Ms Justice Laffoy states in her report that she concluded on the basis of interviews she had with the then Minister, Deputy Woods, that there were some papers that would justify putting a cap of €128 million on the liability of the religious congregations. Why was she not furnished with those papers when she sought discovery of them? Do they exist and will the Taoiseach cause them to be furnished to the Ryan commission?

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