Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)

I welcome the opportunity to debate the legislation, which I look forward to going through in great detail on Committee Stage. It has been a long time coming and I am a little apprehensive about what will happen on Committee Stage because the Government has a majority. I ask the Minister to take on board the concerns that will be expressed.

It is a long time since the resignation of Ms Justice Laffoy. At the time, I described her final report as a damning critique of the Department of Education and Science's ability to adequately deal with child abuse. It is a sensitive issue and many survivors want to air their stories in public. They want proper recognition of the pain and torture they suffered whether that is through financial compensation or airing their stories publicly. I concur with previous speakers that the issue should be taken out of the hands of the Department of Education and Science and transferred to the Department of the Taoiseach, even if additional resources are required to implement the legislation. Many survivors have outlined their lack of faith in the Department of Education and Science. Many good people work in the Department and we have an excellent new Minister but, at the same time, they cannot be expected to look into their own dirt effectively. There will always be a cover-up and in the interest of transparency, responsibility for the commission should be taken from the Department once and for all.

My main problem with the legislation is that many survivors will not be called to give evidence. While survivors welcome the financial provisions, more of them want more than anything else to get their stories out in public and they should be given the opportunity to do so. In addition, many complainants will not have an opportunity to be heard in court because of the delays in that system. They are being asked to accept that the commission will not make findings regarding whether individuals abused people, but that is what they want. There are legal implications to findings that individuals committed abuse but victims seek a definitive conclusion based on the evidence presented. Placing restrictions on the number of witnesses or the extent of the evidence that can be heard will not uncover the entire story.

Sampling is a controversial issue and it has not worked. For example, the third interim report of the commission in December 2003 outlined that there were 165 complainants from primary and secondary schools, 93% of whom could not be called because only one allegation was made against each of 135 individuals. This means 7% could have been called but a sample would have been taken. Sampling will not uncover the entire story because isolated incidents may come to light during the hearings that people may have suppressed for many years because they did not consider them important. However, they will only emerge during the telling of the story by the survivors.

The Minister stated the intention of the commission is to uncover the truth about what happened. However, we know what happened. I said in 2003 that people were raped, buggered and abused in many ways. I will not go into graphic detail but I said during the previous debate that history would judge the Government and religious unkindly when the truth finally emerged. The overwhelming anecdotal evidence is that countless people were abused and the organs of the State and individuals were complicit in this. The Taoiseach's apology went some way to owning up to that but not as far as many survivors would like.

The onus on us is not to go through an arty farty "let us save a few million quid here to get the general truth out" scenario. That would be disingenuous to the survivors. They want their version of the truth to come out and they want history to decide on the basis of individual testimonies. They do not want the commission to reach a sampled conclusion that may be generally correct. We can generally correctly say now that abuse happened and the State was complicit in this regard but we need to get the specifics out into the open.

While I will go through the detail of the legislation on Committee Stage, I refer to a number of my concerns. I welcome section 3 but I have a number of queries about section 4. Sections 5 and 6 provide for speeding up the commission's work without getting all the truth out. I welcome a number of sections, including sections 10 and 11. However, I do not like the use of the term "as far as is reasonably practicable" in section 7, which amends section 12 of the principal Act. That is open to interpretation and it needs to be tightened on Committee Stage.

Part 3 deals with the finance board. Section 27 permits the board to pay grants to former residents of institutions or their relatives to avail of educational services. I would like the legislation to outline the services that will be provided. I also share Deputy Healy's concerns about section 29. While I welcome that four board members must be former residents of institutions, a conflict of interest may arise and this should be addressed as we move through the various Stages. I welcome the miscellaneous provisions in Part 4 and I look forward to going through the legislation on Committee Stage.

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