Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

On that motion, Fine Gael cannot agree to the proposal until we receive clarity on the arrangements for a debate on the Ryan report published today. This harrowing report demands the urgent attention of the Oireachtas. Any words of apology from us on behalf of the State will ring hollow in the ears of people who were at the mercy of and mistreated by the courts, who were dependent on the Department of Education to provide supervision and protection for them and were let down and, who, when they complained of abuse were not listened to, which is an appalling litany.

The State, charged with supervision, simply turned its eye the other way. It was too appalling to consider that the complaints made were true and needed to be acted upon. Instead, it hid behind the relationships established with institutions, which is unforgivable. Many lives have been broken. To witness people breaking down years after these incidents, still broken and hurt by their experience, shakes us all to the core. We need to not only understand how a system could be operated in this way but how, when we entrusted people to care they were managed in a controlling and abusive system that was completely foreign to the notion of care that should be provided to children. We need to understand how and why that happened and whether the remnants that caused that to happen remain extant. Also, we need to understand why it was that when abusers became known, they were simply moved on to other institutions with evidence of the abuse covered up. What happened is frightening.

We, who were privileged to have had protected childhoods, can only imagine what it would have been like to live in terror, which is what the regime was. Does the Tánaiste agree the failures of the State have been unforgivable? Does she accept the State is still failing children in that recommendation 21 of the commission states that the 1999 guidelines need to be consistently applied? Long since apologies were made publicly, the Government is still presiding over a system full of failures.

We need a proper and substantive debate with a motion so that the House can by resolution decide what it will do now. We need to allocate at least two days of Government time to explore the matter thoroughly and make the decisions that need to be made for the future.

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