Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I join Deputy Bruton in making the same request before agreeing to the Order of Business this morning. The report, which has now been made available, is shocking in what it tells us about a very shameful period in Irish history. The report outlines the stories of more than 1,000 victims and how they were sexually abused in many cases, how the sexual abusers were protected and moved from one institution to another by people who knew what they were doing. It outlines the degree of physical of abuse that was inflicted on those children, who were flogged, were not properly clothed, were not properly fed, and were emotionally and physically brutalised. It outlines the degree of bullying that took place. In many cases children were abducted from their families and put into these institutions in a way to provide what can only be described as a kind of headage payment for institutions by people who knew that those children were being abused and that the only reason they were in those institutions was that they were from poor families.

It was shameful in the way in which it was covered up and the way in which people in the then Department of Education knew about it, did not do anything about it, colluded in it and destroyed lives. The least that those people deserve is to have the stories they told to the commission and the conclusions it drew from them discussed here in a way that will ensure that this shameful period in Irish history will be put behind us and lessons learnt from it.

I am somewhat surprised at how the Government has responded to the report. This morning I was surprised that the Government had to be shamed into sending a representative onto the "Morning Ireland" programme to discuss it. When will the House have the debate on this report that we need to have? The Government should now state that it will reverse the cut of €2 million that it imposed on the redress board. I cannot imagine what the Government was thinking in applying that cut a few weeks before this eminent report was due to be published.

We also need a mechanism to reopen the indemnity deal that was negotiated and agreed between the then Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Woods, and the religious orders, which was concluded on the day before a new Government was formed in 2002. It was concluded in circumstances in which no memorandum was brought to Government about the issue. We are told that the then Attorney General was not directly involved in the matter. All of this resulted in capping the contribution of the religious orders at €127 million, but the amount the taxpayer has had to pick up is almost ten times that and is now estimated at €1.2 billion. Yesterday's report concludes: "The deferential and submissive attitude of the Department of Education towards the Congregations compromised its ability to carry out its statutory duty of inspection and monitoring of the schools [and in respect of its duty to the children]." The same deferential and submissive attitude was alive and well when Deputy Woods concluded that agreement in 2002.

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