Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)

We have all heard the land of saints and scholars being mentioned during this debate. I want to know where the saints were while the little children threaded wire until their fingers bled to make rosary beads and where the scholars were, doubtless locked up in their ivory towers behind closed doors. Why did they not use their wisdom and knowledge to cry "Stop"? Instead they allowed the children to suffer at the hands of Satan. These landmark buildings, which were institutions of terror, should all be wiped from the landscape forever. People have suffered enough and should not be constantly reminded of what has happened to them when they pass these monuments of cruelty.

One would need to be subhuman not to be outraged and appalled by the contents of the Ryan report. It sickens me to the core to think I live just three minutes' walk from the gates of one of these institutions where such depravity was part of everyday routine. Now I know why my grandfather before he died begged my grandmother not to put their children into an industrial school. He had on occasions maintained the washing machines and had witnessed the children's workload and the conditions under which they performed their duties. Owing to family circumstances, mainly poverty, young defenceless children were abandoned to a life of extreme cruelty in these institutions. Corporal punishment was the norm and the children lived in constant terror for decades. Catholic priests and nuns terrorised thousands of boys and girls while Government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beating, rape and humiliation.

Children's safety and self-preservation should be to the forefront of our education system but, sadly, this was never a priority in the network of industrial schools. In reformatories, orphanages and hostels, children were demonised from the 1930s until the last facility closed down in 1990.

Although the Ryan report has been published, we must accept that nothing can compensate for the damage done to small defenceless children. Many were trying to cope with the loss of a parent or a separation from siblings, or had committed petty crimes in a time of desperation. St. Vincent's Industrial School in Goldenbridge opened its doors in 1880, run by the Sisters of Mercy order. When the first allegations of abuse emerged in 1992, the country was in a state of shock. My community of Inchicore was saddened and horrified at what had happened on our doorstep. In the years that followed, two documentaries broadcast by RTE, "Dear Daughter" and "States of Fear", further depicted the horror endured by young innocent children in Goldenbridge. The official silence about the schools, held by the State, the Department of Education and Science and the Catholic Church, was finally broken but the road to truth and justice was a long one for those people who had suffered at the hands of so-called figures of authority and respect.

Young girls in St. Vincent's Industrial School in Goldenbridge were held in conditions of neglect and near-starvation, and were subject to repeated beatings. One testimony revealed the horror and the long-lasting psychological impact and cruelty experienced by the children: "The screaming of children in Goldenbridge will stay with me for the rest of my life. I still hear it and have not recovered from hearing children crying and screaming. It was endless. It did not stop for years in that place."

The extent of abuse in industrial schools in this country outlined in the Ryan report deeply saddens me. The report and the details of abuse sicken me. How could it happen? How did people stay quiet, turn a blind eye and bow to the power of the clergy? They had the power to put a stop to the misery and suffering of children but did not act. This is our greatest failure. Given my own experience of growing up in Inchicore, coming from a family where love was in abundance, in a community where the Oblate Fathers and the Sisters of Mercy played a vital role in the well-being and education of my community, it saddens me all the more to think of all the good people who have been let down by the sins of the past. Let us not forget those members of religious orders who have done good work but are now forever tarnished by the terrible scandal of abuse in industrial schools.

We must also remember the ill-treatment of children who were in places other than these schools. The classrooms of fear existed everywhere. In my own school children were subject to strap beatings on the knuckles or with the cane and were made stand on tables when they could not repeat the "Our Father" in Irish. Often their ears were pinned to the walls.

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse interviewed 1,090 former residents of 216 schools and reformatories, 90% of whom said they had been physically abused, with over 500 abused sexually. After nine years of hearings and the publication of five volumes containing 260 pages of horror, have the victims really seen justice? Have those who committed the crimes outlined in the report been justly punished? They have not. The secrecy surrounding the identity of those who committed these horrible crimes is very troubling. Why should they be allowed hide behind faceless names, escaping criminal proceedings with no accountability for their actions?

We know that those-----

See this speech in context