Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

It is almost exactly ten years since I spoke in the House to outline the reasons behind the Government's decision to establish the commission to inquire into child abuse. I said then, "We want the commission to carry out its work without fear or favour and to go wherever it feels it must go to get at the truth". We committed to giving the commission the time, resources and powers it required to finally lay out for everyone in this society the comprehensive and irrefutable truth about how so many of our most vulnerable citizens were failed for so long.

This was to be a unique inquiry which could not fulfil its objectives if it attempted to operate like a traditional tribunal. Its work would be for nothing if it was distracted by endless legal technicalities or limited its findings to finely-balanced generalities. Now that the Commission has published its final report we can see that its work has not only been valuable and comprehensive but goes much further.

This is a report of major historical significance. It poses a great challenge to us all because one of the things we do worst here is history. The realities of adversarial politics and the constant desire to demonstrate superior empathy are bad routes through which to approach the need of every society to understand its history.

The sheer scale of this report, the stories it tells, the forensic detail with which it reconstructs a systemic nightmare, and the many ways in which society failed to intervene mean that it is neither possible nor desirable to try to address it all in one short speech within a limited debate. It is incumbent upon every Member of this House not only to read the report but to take time to understand it.

The proper role for this debate is to see it as a beginning of our work, with further significant time being required to consider both immediate and long-term issues raised in the report. I would like to concentrate, therefore, on the background to the report and its most important findings regarding the industrial school system.

Mr. Justice Ryan and all of the members and staff of the commission deserve our thanks. We should also thank Ms Justice Mary Laffoy for her defining contribution in the early years of its work.

There can be no doubt, however, who deserves the main credit - the survivors who would not let our society continue to ignore the inhuman abuse which has been inflicted on so many. In particular, I would like to acknowledge three people who were directly responsible for the decision by Government not only to acknowledge and apologise for the abuse but also to establish a forum for the full story to be brought out.

Christine Buckley, Bernadette Fahy and Carmel McDonnell-Byrne are remarkable people. In early May 1999 I met them in my Leinster House office as part of the work of a special Cabinet sub-committee on abuse, of which I was chair, which was preparing the package of measures later announced by the then Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern. The sub-committee, whose members included the current Taoiseach, was eager that we would hear directly from survivors.

What I will never forget about that meeting is their very first words: "Minister, we want you to believe that these things happened to us. Do you believe us?" It is still shocking to me that at the end of the 20th century, survivors of an institutional system so horrific that the word "abuse" is inadequate felt the need to ask to be believed.

We should never forget that the revelations of their treatment in Goldenbridge, contained in the programme "Dear Daughter", were not only not properly accepted but were at times aggressively disputed. They sought and failed to receive the public acknowledgement to which they had a right. The official response was a disgrace and their treatment caused direct distress to the all too many survivors who shared their childhood experiences. The concern of survivors at that time was that the public outrage at the contents of the "States of Fear" documentary would be short-lived and that the culture of excuses and disbelief would return.

The Government did believe them, and I told them that very clearly. That was the reason the official apology was so important and also why we decided that a process was required which would ensure survivors never again had to struggle to be believed.

In the period immediately after the official apology there was a rush of survivors contacting counselling services. It was a very emotional and traumatic time for everyone involved. There were many cases of individual survivors coming to the Department of Education and Science offices and asking to talk to someone. That was often the first time they had told anyone about what had happened to them. Even their families did not know.

In the years since then the number of survivors actively involved in support groups has increased significantly. The culture of denial has been confronted head-on and, as we saw yesterday on the streets of this city, there is no question where public support lies.

As I have mentioned in the short time available to me, I am concentrating on the report in so far as it concerns the industrial school system. Of the many fundamental issues raised by the report I would like to address two particular questions which have great social and political significance: how this could have happened and, once the institutions were closed, why it took so long before the truth was acknowledged.

I do not propose to spend time repeating the findings of the report. The stories of the survivors and the substance of the record are powerful enough. What they show us is that this is not about occasional failings, rogue individuals, funding or the prevailing international standards of the time. The scale and nature of the abuse was systemic. It was unique to Ireland and our society and politics looked away rather than confront it.

In our culture we often like to spend our time finding someone else to blame but the full picture of this abuse is so horrific and the failure to stop it so inexcusable, it represents a great national shame. This was a system which actively sought to institutionalise children. It reflected a cold and inhuman approach to basic social difficulties and to the impact of poverty. Once the children were taken from society, they were confined to institutions which claimed the mantle of Christian charity but delivered a hellish reality. It is not just that the State and wider society did not show even a basic interest in the welfare of these children. Any attempts at oversight and accountability were aggressively opposed.

How could this happen? How could a republican state, which remained democratic at a time when so many others became totalitarian, allow this to go on for decades? The only reasonable way to interpret both the findings of the report and wider historical work is that a faith which was so important in former times to the protection of national identity became grossly distorted. It manifested itself in powerful pressure for institutional obedience and deference. This was damaging for society in general but was much worse when it came to the State abdicating its duty of care to thousands of children. The State was willing to stand back and essentially allow the orders free reign. It only rarely and generally as a result of the determination of an individual made any form of intervention.

The Church, as an institution, simply could not bring itself to admit error and time after time put the avoidance of scandal ahead of basic human rights. It actively resisted any attempt by the State to play a role beyond that of committing children and providing funds. How can anyone even begin to understand a mentality which once went as far as to complain that not enough children were being taken from their families and institutionalised?

The political system itself consistently failed as well. At no stage was the welfare of these children a major political issue for Government or Opposition, and the record of this House shows a general disinterest. There were no election debates about the industrial schools. There were no posters and no manifestos.

However, and this is a point which can often be missed, the biggest failure of all was a societal failure. It was a collective failure which put institutional interests above human rights. It was a collective failure to show no interest. It was a collective failure to refuse to shine a light on a dark corner of Irish society.

The report has brought an end to the excuses about resources or a few bad apples. This happened in our country because it was let happen. The individuals who abused children formed part of a wider system and society which allowed it to happen. The new State, created through the desire of many generations to shape their own future, achieved much of which we can be proud but we must also include within our history the harsh truth outlined in such detail in the commission's report.

That the full truth has finally come out is to be profoundly welcomed but it leaves behind the question of why it took so long to come out. The industrial schools system was effectively closed in the 1970s. While it was not closed because those involved accepted its failures, however, those failures were none the less evident. As the report shows clearly, literally thousands of people knew what had happened either because they were survivors or because they were involved in the system.

Why did we have to wait for survivors like Christine Buckley, Bernadette Fahy and Carmel McDonnell-Byrne to campaign in the face of disinterest and disbelief? Why did we have to wait for the work of Louis Lentin, Mary Raftery and Eoin O'Sullivan? Why was it not until 1999 that a Government was willing to apologise to the survivors? In trying to explain that it is worthwhile to examine the work of the Kennedy Committee, what it was trying to achieve and how its report was received.

The 1960s was a period of great change here and around the world. In public life a number of great innovators and reformers held office and overturned policies which were constraining our society and economy. Among these figures Donogh O'Malley stands out. Soon after he became Minister for Education he decided he would end the industrial school system. To achieve this he created the Kennedy Committee. While it was nominally a representative group, he principally chose members whom he could trust to propose major reform.

One of the constant questions over the years has been how a committee could have spent so long examining such a corrupt system and not have outlined the abuse or held people to account for their behaviour. In a meeting with the surviving members of the committee I asked that question and was told that their focus was on the future, not the past. More importantly, the act of questioning the system itself was viewed as radical and met constant opposition. They were generally faced with cold opposition when looking at existing institutions. At one point the newly appointed Minister, the late Mr. Brian Lenihan, had to personally intervene to ensure they had proper administrative support. When they demanded the end to severe physical punishment in one institution the response was slow, uncomprehending and hostile. When they published the report it was not welcomed by a system which was concerned only with its own status and resources. Once, at a meeting about the report in Kilkenny which some members of the committee were obliged to attend, it was made very clear that it was viewed as anti-religious. One contributor said, "we have been damned with the faint praise of secular administrators". Such incidents show that one of the main reasons there was no acknowledgement of abuse was that the underlying institutional arrogance was still very strong. It also shows why the change in child care policy, while very significant, did not go even further and took far too long to implement.

Two other factors were at play also. It is well known that a society which has participated in a great trauma can wait decades before confronting issues of fact and responsibility. At some point this becomes untenable and a new generation demands the right to know about its history, not with vague generalities but with hard truths. While there are no exact parallels, one may recognise similar factors today in former dictatorships such as those of Chile or much of former Soviet Europe.

Moreover, the most important part of exposing the truth, hearing the stories of survivors, was actively hindered. Countless individuals suffered in silence, believing that people would think worse of them if they were aware of what had happened in their childhood. The places to share and support were absent and the fear of being labelled a liar was constant. The damage imposed by being unable to discuss suffering often multiplies its impact and this, tragically, had an immense impact on survivors. It takes almost unimaginable strength to come through these ordeals and to be willing to discuss them.

In effect our society attempted to ignore the past and move on. It was not understood that this is simply impossible. There could be no moving on without confronting the past. It is not possible to build a society which vindicates the rights of its children without accepting how these rights could be violated on such a scale and for so long. This is why the commission was so necessary and why its report is so significant.

We will have much time in the months ahead to discuss the detailed policy implications of the report. As I have stated, I also acknowledge the finding of the report on other issues, especially more recent failures. For now, the most important thing we can do is understand what was allowed to happen in our country to so many of our weakest citizens.

When outlining the objectives for the commission a decade ago I stated to the House:

Throughout the work of the commission, and probably well beyond it, further horrific cases of abuse will come to light. More and more difficult questions will be asked and our concept of our society will be challenged. If we try, we can make this a healing process which will bring us closer to maturing as a society.

The commission has now completed its work and it is now down to us as a society to complete the healing process and to finally move on.

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