Ulick Burke (Galway East, Fine Gael)

This report is the most important report ever to be debated in this House. It contains the most horrific evidence of abuse of children throughout the country over a period of decades. It is important that the report brings into the open the terrible brutality of the monsters who perpetrated such horrible deeds of abuse on children who were sent into these institutions for what should have been care. It is worse still that the repeated failure of the State, which had responsibility for putting these children into these institutions, abandoned them without any further interest in their care. As a society that allowed such abuse as is recorded in the Ryan report, we must take a share of responsibility for the abuse perpetrated on the children in care in these institutions run by the religious orders and the Departments of State who had responsibility for the provision of care.

Were it not for the courage and honesty of the survivors of this institutional abuse, who came forward to tell their stories, many of these abused persons would have been remembered only as our disappeared children. We now must come to terms with this level of abuse. Although institutional care belongs to a different era, many of the lessons to be learned from what happened have contemporary implications for the protection of vulnerable people in our society. There still is abuse of children in our country even if not to the same extent, or institutionalised.

We will compound the shame of past deeds if we fail to act now to ensure that no child can ever again be treated in the same way. We must be totally honest about situations in which many vulnerable children still find themselves; about the lack of family support in times of difficulty and about the inadequacy of child protection and services for children. We must find the resources now to show we are serious about responding to children's needs. It is important that we ask the Minister to ensure that the assurances given by the Taoiseach today in the House are carried through. He stated:

The Government accepts all the recommendations of the commission and is committed to their implementation ... I want to make it clear at the outset that the Government's priority is and will continue to be the needs of survivors.

It is important that this statement should offer a guarantee that funds and resources and personnel will be made available to those who need them.

With the experience of the past and the information now available, we must ensure that no future commission will find Ireland to be a place that fails to value childhood or to respect and protect children. We must adopt a response in which the survivors of abuse are recognised as having an absolute entitlement to properly resourced counselling and support services.

Many abused persons have clearly stated that their concern is not about compensation but about getting people to believe them in the first instance and then to believe their stories. It has been shown clearly that not being believed was the most hurtful experience of all for the abused person. These people must have access to proper services.

We must show our urgent commitment to have an immediate referendum on the rights of children. Why has the Government refused repeatedly to bring this about? The Government must also respond urgently to the call by the commission for the national guidelines on child protection be put on a statutory basis, and deal with all agencies, public and private, which fail to comply with the implementation of standards and responsibilities for all persons who work with children.

Furthermore, we must put in place immediately an inspection process which is independently operated and comprehensive in its application. At present we do not have such a facility although the Ombudsman for Children has repeatedly requested this. We have neither standards nor inspections. This lack was highlighted in the report and the failure of the Department of Education and Science in this area is a cause of serious concern.

In a summary of the conclusions, the system of inspection by the Department of Education and Science was found to be fundamentally flawed and incapable of being effective. One of the most serious findings was that inspectors rarely spoke to the children in these institutions. What kind of inspector would go into any one of the 50 institutions for which he or she had responsibility and not speak to one of the children inside it? In what frame of mind would such an inspector have been? This was the case despite the fact that inspectors must have been aware of the cruelty under which these children were living.

The position of the inspectors was compromised by a lack of independence from the Department. Here again, as a nation we must have shame. The Government of the time, its Ministers and the Department bowed to the church's authority. They were afraid to report and that is an indictment on all of us today. I still see evidence that this remains the case today.

The inspector was not supported by a regulatory authority which had the power to insist that changes be made. There was a statutory obligation that one inspector had responsibility for 50 schools. Inspections were not random or unannounced. School managers were alerted in advance when inspections were due. Again, that situation is replicated today. Nothing has changed and I doubt it will unless there is a firm commitment by the Taoiseach - which he gave today - and by other Ministers. The very same practices are happening in institutions for the elderly. These are told in advance when there will be an inspection so that everything can look right. When the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, visited a hospital in Galway, all the people on trolleys were pushed aside and there was a clear gangway for the Minister. Things have not changed to any great extent and it is important that the undertaking given by the Taoiseach today is implemented in full and with total commitment to the guarantees he gave.

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