Paudge Connolly (Cavan-Monaghan, Independent)

Ms Justice Laffoy's interim report has cast the Department of Education and Science, the Minister and, by extension, the Government in a light which is not very complimentary. Society has become ridden with tribunals and commissions. Most of society's principles are being stampeded on in a manner that would do credit to Saddam Hussein and President George W. Bush's deck of cards. The manner in which the Government tried to stall Ms Justice Laffoy's letter of resignation as chairperson of the commission investigating child abuse compounded the hypocrisy with which it behaved throughout. The lack of co-operation from the Department of Education and Science, along with its constant interference with Ms Justice Laffoy's remit, left her with no option but to resign. We must ask why she resigned.

Since the commission was established, the Department and the Government have displayed crass hypocrisy in their approach to the matter of child abuse. Based on its extended attempts to muzzle Ms Justice Laffoy and the commission, it appears that the Government has a vested interest in attempting to prevent the commission from fulfilling the functions conferred on it by the Oireachtas. The Taoiseach was disingenuous in his facile reference to Ms Justice Laffoy having encountered a heavy caseload of abuse allegations and legal challenges. I am surprised that the nature of the caseload was not known before she took on this case. One must ask who is deceiving who in this instance. The Taoiseach may have convinced himself that he was telling a fairy story when he gave a "Bertie-ese" explanation of the tensions between Ms Justice Laffoy and the Government. Ms Justice Laffoy's letter of resignation was preserved as a State secret for days until the mandarins were able to gauge the possible fall-out. One can only begin to gauge the degree of so-called Government concern for the victims of child abuse, who have been treated contemptuously by the Government and its minions.

The commission's original terms of reference were to address the appalling incidences of decades of child sexual abuse in the State's industrial schools and to provide a forum for the victims to relate their horrific stories. Unfortunately, the Department of Education and Science sought to mitigate or obscure its responsibility by muddying the waters. The Government, through its hypocritical attitude towards such a major issue of human misery as child sexual abuse, has perpetrated an unpardonable injustice and, in the event, may well have undermined the commission's effectiveness. Because of its lack of input into the commission's deliberations through its failure to provide the documentation sought by Ms Justice Laffoy, the State stands indicted of non-co-operation with the commission it sponsored. In any other country this would be a resigning matter on the part of the Minister and his senior officials, who have in effect colluded in the suppression of documents which Ms Justice Laffoy adjudged as being vital to the commission's deliberations.

The Department of Education and Science, through its responsibility for more than 90% of the institutions in which upwards of 1,950 cases of abuse took place, bears major culpability for the various instances of abuse. The Department's inspectorate has shown itself totally incapable of evaluating the running of such institutions and, as far as a psychological test is concerned, the Department is somewhere short of the Dark Ages. Inspectors conveniently overlooked what was glaringly obvious and ignored reports by the former manager of an industrial school about boys being sexually abused over a period of years. The lack of co-operation on the part of the Department bears a close resemblance to the British Government's reluctance to co-operate with the Barron inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.

A large amount of documentation sought from the Department is still outstanding. It can hardly attribute its loss to the transfer of its records from Dublin to Athlone. These things do not go missing of their own accord. We heard earlier about documents vanishing. The documentation furnished by 55 industrial and reform schools indicated a massive cover-up, particularly in light of the Department's tardiness in forwarding the other documents sought by Ms Justice Laffoy. The fact that over two thirds of the documentation furnished by the Department to the commission has been irrelevant to the commission's inquiries is a despicable commentary on the Department's unsuitability to administer a system of juvenile correction and rehabilitation. The Government and the Department have shown a distinct lack of real engagement in the Laffoy Commission and have demonstrated a degree of hypocrisy that is breathtaking in the extreme. I call on the Government to remove responsibility for juvenile correction from the Department of Education and Science and vest it in the Taoiseach's Department instead.

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