John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

The findings of the Ryan report are appalling and devastating, so much so that any words spoken in a political debate like this can seem hollow and empty. There is an enormity to the crime that was perpetrated in our industrial schools. It spanned close to a century and blighted thousands of lives through abuse, neglect and violence. This debate comes decades too late and I feel a great sense of regret and sorrow for that. It is nearly 40 years since most of these institutions closed and it has taken until now for the true nature and extent of the abuse to be laid bare by the Ryan report. The great shame on this House is that this debate did not take place while these abuses were going on, when we could have at least saved some of our children from the unspeakable horrors they endured.

When faced with such a great evil - that is what it was - there is a natural inclination to find culprits and apportion blame. Yes, we can blame individuals for their crimes against children in their care. We can blame their superiors for turning a blind eye or, worse, covering up and moving them on. We can blame whole groups of religious for neglecting and assaulting those they were supposed to care for. We can blame the orders for creating, sustaining and protecting a system whereby children were incarcerated simply to keep numbers up and the capitation money flowing. We can blame the hierarchy for sitting in their palaces while this system grew up and prospered in their dioceses. We can blame the Department of Education for failing to inspect these places in any proper way. We can blame that Department for ignoring and dismissing individual complaints without even a cursory investigation.

We can blame the ISPCC for being part of the system and its inspectors, who were chillingly called "cruelty men", for committing to care children who could and should have remained with their families. We can blame the judges for signing orders incarcerating children as homeless or delinquents and the gardaí for enforcing those orders. However, we must remember that the system could not have grown, flourished or survived without the acquiescence of the general public. What occurred in Ireland is without precedent in 20th century western democracies. We managed not only to institutionalise but also to industrialise child abuse and neglect so that it became systemic and systematic. Children's homes became factories producing broken people. Edmund Burke once said that for evil to triumph, all it takes is for good men to do nothing. As with many of the evils we have seen in this world, such as the police state in post-war East Germany, a compliant populace was necessary. These schools were located in the hearts of our towns and cities. We saw the children as they trooped out to mass. We threatened our own children with names like Artane, Letterfrack or Newtownforbes if they were bold.

Yesterday I met a group of survivors led by Michael O'Brien and including Tony Deeney and Christopher Heaphy. Christopher, who is here today, told me that what really got to him was the apathy about and sheer indifference to his plight. These institutions are a stain on Irish society which can never be washed away and, as a society, we must accept the blame. We must also pay tribute to those whose bravery and perseverance led to the establishment of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. We should recognise the bravery of survivors like Christine Buckley, Paddy Doyle, Bernadette Fahy and the late Pat Tierney, who came forward to tell their stories publicly in the 1990s. We must also recognise the role of investigative journalism and academic research by individuals such as Mary Raftery and Eoin O'Sullivan.

Following the State's apology in 1999 we thought we had turned a corner. We believed that the religious orders accepted and acknowledged the hurt and wrong done and were committed to truth, reconciliation and restitution. The redress board and the commission were intended to be non-adversarial but they ended up causing further abuse and undermined the survivors. The religious orders adopted an intractable line during the negotiations on their contribution to the redress scheme and, yet again, the State allowed the orders to minimise their exposure to compensation. The redress scheme was supposed to minimise the distress caused to our survivors but in many cases it added to the hurt. Some felt further trauma because the abuse they suffered was not sufficiently recognised. They felt pushed into accepting settlements they believed to be insufficient and were then legally gagged from talking about the matter. They were further traumatised through the commission. Certain orders approached the commission in the harshest manner imaginable. They trampled over the survivors by challenging, denying and obstructing the process. Protecting the orders was put before the abuse of the victims. The abuse, neglect and disregard of our survivors must end now. I hope the orders have turned a new leaf in their approach and I want to believe them. Their engagement with the Government in the coming weeks will be a measure of that.

The Government must ensure that the additional funds paid by the orders are used to provide proper redress and support to the survivors. Yesterday Michael O'Brien told me of the ongoing problems experienced by survivors who are now entering middle and old age. Many are living in poverty in Ireland, England and elsewhere and suffer serious psychological, emotional and addiction problems. Their families have also been traumatised. We must work to ensure that resources are provided to meet their housing, health, educational and occupational needs. We must also address the legal status of their incarceration. The existence of court records has caused serious problems for many. We must find a legal mechanism of providing complete and unambiguous clarity to each survivor in respect of these records.

We can never undo the beatings, abuse and lost childhoods or the broken lives and shattered families that flowed from these institutions. However, we can do all in our power to ensure that the needs of the remaining survivors are met in full and the Green Party as part of the Government is committed to achieving that end. We must act on all of the recommendations contained in the Ryan report on future child protection. A national monument and day of commemoration are needed but the greatest monument we can leave is to enshrine children's rights in the Constitution through a constitutional amendment. We have been debating this issue for more than four years in this House but the time for debate has concluded. I urge all parties in the House to find consensus through the work of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children, which is due to report in September.

In the debate on institutional abuse both within this House and in the wider media, the voices of the survivors have not been sufficiently heeded. For that reason, I would like to rehearse the words of Christopher Heaphy, who gave me a copy of an open letter he had written. Christy spent seven and a half years in Greenmount industrial school in Cork, where he was violently abused. He now has a degree in electrical engineering but the scars will remain with him for life.

Christy writes of his experience:

Life for us children was to become one long hard struggle, trying to overcome the enormous disadvantage bestowed on us by being institutionalised. Our education was totally deficient - so much so thousands left the institutions illiterate.

We left the institutions with little or no conversation skills whatsoever, having had it beaten out of us, and therefore had to spend a large proportion of our lives in solitude and loneliness being shunned by 'normal people because we could not converse'.

We had to overcome our ignorance in every aspect of a normal life. Being very naive we were cripples, emotionally and educationally.

Many of us have lost sons, daughters and families through our inability to give and accept love. We were unable to respond to any form of affection or compassion because of the callous indifference bred and beaten into us in the industrial schools.

We have inflicted suffering and pain on other human beings through our inability to show little or no emotion or love. Because of our ignorance we have been used, abused and manipulated by people in privileged positions. Externally we look and behave normally but internally every day is a constant struggle.

How does one measure the cost of a lost childhood? Those formative years when family values, moral values, bonding with siblings, education, and all the social skills and graces are learnt as the basic building blocks for life. Where a child learns through fun and play how to get the most out of life.

We on the other hand had to perform tasks like emptying animal cesspools and we were being sexually abused as children. One of the greatest crimes committed against us - apart from the many forms of abuse inflicted upon us - was the total ignorance we had which deprived us of even a fighting chance of making our own way in the world.

We were put to work as babies and we were beaten and flogged if we didn't perform the tasks assigned to us.

How could the Government and the people of our country ever repay the debt they owe us through their indifference to our cries for help? How can you repair the mental damage caused or stop the nightmares when they occur?

We were the lifeblood of this country, precious, and we were totally neglected. We were thrown to wolves to be savaged, abused and treated like animals. When we cried no one could hear us because we were locked up behind great walls and doors, our tears eventually stopped and we became like them animals in thought and act.

There are no second chances to re-live a life. Therefore the memories of our childhood in the Industrial School system will always be ones of terror and anxiety, loneliness and fear.

We believe that the Redress Bill is another cruel pretence of token atonement. We have had to relive vividly the horrors suffered in the industrial schools to total strangers. We have had to confront our most hideous nightmares. We feel totally defiled again.

To date we have had to recount to the following list of people the horrors of our childhood - all of these people have to be paid substantially for their time and none of them come cheaply; Judges, barristers, solicitors, psychiatrists, medical doctors, counsellors. From the above list the privilege of an education is a prerequisite in obtaining a profession.

Thousands of us are paid unemployment assistance by the State. Many many of us survivors have very little hope of building careers or of living happy homes and stable family lives. There is no restitution that can give us back our childhood. There is no restitution that can take away the nightmares when they occur or relieve the fear and anxiety attacks as they frequently happen. There is no restitution that can undo the harm done to us.

We would do well to heed the words of Christopher. Indeed there can be no restitution but while we cannot undo the violence and abuse of the past, we can at least listen to their pleas and attempt to restore their dignity by providing the support and services they so rightly deserve.

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