Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I speak on the Murphy report as a citizen, a husband, a father and a Catholic. It is with a degree of pain that I will say what I have to about the conduct of the church of which I am a member. When someone reasonably famous dies, the easy comment to make on their passing is that it marks the end of an era. The publication of the Murphy report does too. It marks the end of an era of trust in the Catholic church as we knew it.

The Ferns Report was deeply disturbing but it left the hope that such assaults on the innocence of children had, perhaps, only happened in this area. The Ryan report was equally disturbing, particularly because of the graphic nature of its presentation. Even as we condemn the callous and uncaring cruelty of the religious into whose hands were delivered generation after generation of little children, we in this House knew the first most deadly trauma of being torn asunder from family, and everything familiar, to be incarcerated in a penal institution was delivered by the State in our name.

Now the Murphy report has been published and we are left in no doubt. The events it examined did not just happen 50 years ago but went right up into the years of this decade. The era when the officers of the Catholic church were revered, trusted, depended upon, even kowtowed to, ended last week with the publication of the Murphy report. Nothing will ever restore the church to its former position.

However, that is to speak of an institution. Sadness and loneliness and unearned shame do not happen to an institution. Instead, they are suffered by individuals. Individuals, like the priests all across the archdiocese of Dublin who, having always done their job to the highest standards, nevertheless had to turn to face a congregation this Sunday to read a pastoral letter aloud. I hope those men - and the men and women in congregations who were never abusive to children in their care - understand the public admires the courage and continued commitment of the good religious and good priests serving this nation.

Good religious have always stayed focused on human beings. The tragedy is the bishops who protected paedophile priests seem to have lost sight of their victims. They protected the system at the expense of the people. They managed the way Enron was managed, through doctoring the figures, concealing the reality and ignoring the consequences.

The Catholic church throughout the 20th century was run by men who were hugely powerful and influential. They chose to use their power and influence in ways that left thousands of the faithful lost, damaged, destroyed. They could not believe the accusations could be true of one of their own men. In the face of any complaint, they closed ranks repeatedly against children and their families. They protected their own because their own men mattered. The human beings accusing those men of filthy actions, immoral behaviour and of repeated rapes of children did not matter. It was "Us and Them"; the "Us" being those who have taken holy orders and were, therefore, better than "Them", the laity.

That elitism allowed the protection and promotion of men who should never have been allowed near the priesthood. It allowed officers of the church who were not themselves paedophiles to dismiss the allegations of children as the product of attention seeking. It allowed them to dismiss the complaints of parents as motivated by the desire for attention or money.

The archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, in his response to the Murphy report told a simple truth that must not be overlooked. He said when parents came with their stories of assault and intrusion, they came to make sure what had happened to their child never happened to another child. That is the truth - the Christian truth. Parents who could simply have gone to the Garda, instead went quietly to the church they loved in an effort to protect other children.

Their generosity and concern, however, was rejected. Their children were interrogated, as if they were involved in some bizarre plot to damage good men. The officers of the church who dealt with them seemed to have forgotten the gospels. Nowhere in the gospels does Christ dismiss a cry of pain or ignore a need. When his apostles tried to shoo children away from his presence, he stopped them and said, "Suffer the little children". Two thousand years later the very men who ran the church turned that philosophy on its head. By their actions, they said, "Let the little children suffer". And suffer they did. God love them, how they suffered and continue to suffer.

Child abuse is a trauma that never goes away, a wound that never heals. How could it? Imagine an eight year old assaulted by a clergyman. A family friend, who is trusted, respected and loved, suddenly is doing things the child does not or cannot understand. The trusted figure wraps these actions in both treats and threats. Treats like trips and sweets; threats like no one believing such stories with the child beaten for lying. We know abuse leaves a reflex of fear and dread and suspicion in abused children, so that every affectionate touch became suspect, every loving instinct within themselves corrupted and tainted. The men who violated children were clever, manipulative and charming people who frightened many children into silence.

Some, however, spoke up out of the confusion and shame. They spoke up and were believed by parents who acted with wisdom and compassion. They went to the church officials and told their story, only to find themselves dismissed, postponed, ignored, shunned and isolated. Their children were characterised as both wicked and untrustworthy. The officers of the church compounded the horrors visited on children by behaving as if those children were born liars out to do gratuitous damage to the priesthood. These were children who came of devout families who once had a fervent faith.

As we look at the appalling figures, we must never forget the unrepresented victims - the silent victims. For fear of being disbelieved, some never told. For fear of hurting their parents, others never told. For shame, because they thought, wrongly, they must be in some way to blame for the filthy thing being done to them, yet more never told. For every child who was immediately believed, how many were walloped and told not to be making up stories about a good man? For every child whose parents took immediate effective action, how many others were told to keep quiet and just keep clear of Father X?

The end result of this mismanagement is that men who abused were sent to another parish to new children to abuse. The officers of the church protected their own and freed men to do it all over again. They fooled themselves that it was an aberration. They convinced themselves that protection against being wrongly accused was more important than permanent, lifelong damage to children.

A recent newspaper report indicated that one man was wrongly accused. He stood aside from his ministry while investigations took place. We can all imagine the agony of that man, knowing people were canvassing among themselves the possibility that his hands might have violated the innocence of a child in the parish. We can imagine the misery of the man, on his own, exercising no priestly functions, with all the time in the world to consider what people might be thinking about him. The adage that a man is innocent until proven guilty is one that must leave a peculiar taste in the mouth of a man in that position. However, in that one case, the man was proven innocent. He went back to work. It was as simple, extraordinary and admirable as that. By vindication and courage he showed faith and trust in his own belief and in the future.

None of that courage, faith, and trust in people or the future was shown by countless officers of the church presented with evidence that children had been abused. Instead, what was shown was denial, evasion, irresponsibility and a dreadfully sophisticated word process. I was saddened as a citizen at one of the most shocking aspects of that word process, which took the form of a cardinal explaining to the commission, as if it was valid and acceptable, the concept of "mental reservation" which allowed him to mislead, not just victims, but the people of this country. By changing tenses and words here and there, a leading churchman with the lives and well-being of children in his care misled victims and media about paying for the defence of a priest who was a paedophile. How far the church has fallen is painfully illustrated by the fact that some people believe there was nothing wrong in what he did. Others did follow up each and every complaint with a passion. Those who did not look back at the records of complaint trailing men who had been convicted, failed in their duty of care to the children of the faithful. Those may be good men in all other respects - I have no doubt that many are - but as a Catholic and a father I cannot believe that any other virtues or competences outweigh the failure to prevent child rape.

Those children are grown up now and the scars are not readily evident. Yet, they carry them and will carry them for life. Their every relationship, every response will be influenced to a greater or lesser extent by what was done to them. It is no wonder they talk bitterly of churchmen making vague statements about regret for any pain or hurt suffered, when what victims want is that men who stood idly by, to coin a phrase, should now say and do something quite different. They want those men to say:

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't believe you or ensure that you were believed. I'm sorry I didn't move heaven and earth when you came to us in trust and home. I'm sorry one of our men raped or groped you and in the process destroyed your innocence and childhood. I'm sorry that I concentrated on avoiding the giving of scandal as if the church's long term survival could be built on concealment of the truth and I am now prepared to resign and step down as a symbol of change. Let the law, both Canon and civil, take its course.

The obfuscation and self-protection of those who ignored the truth told by children will never be forgotten. It has irreparably damaged the Catholic church in this country and in the world. The tragedy is that some priests and bishops did more damage to the children and to the church than the initial offences could ever have done, because they forgot what their church stood for. They abandoned its values and stopped believing promises such as, "The truth will set you free". They applied sophistry and avoidance where honesty, trust, compassion and care were required.

Abused children grew up and grew old in secrecy and silence. They were the walking wounded, trying to make sense of a world out of which a priest had torn the trust, hope and innocence. The State has been rightly condemned for its role in harvesting children for religious institutions. Deputies Shatter and Flanagan will deal with the inadequacies of the State and its agencies. The State cannot gloss over the complicity of those who concealed, postponed and denied. It may well be, that with deliberate forgetfulness, enough evidence has been lost to ensure the safety of those who concealed and denied the pain of children. However, if action can be taken, let it be taken. Let that action be taken in the name of the church, in the wreckage of which the faithful now stand. Let it be taken in the name of the State that gave those who concealed prestige and power. Let it also be taken in the name of the generations of children who suffered and parents who watched them suffer.

I support the Taoiseach in giving priority to the legislative changes that are required to ensure that the State never allows anything such as that to happen again, and that we put in place structures and legal conditions as will be outlined by many Deputies. I have given my views about those who knowingly moved paedophile priests from parish to parish. The Murphy report is a sad litany of abuse following other sad litanies of abuse. There will be others in the future if further reports are done. It behoves us in this House to do what we can in a right and proper fashion to ensure that innocence and trust is not destroyed by the groping hands of predators on the innocence of young children. If we as legislators and elected representatives of the people fail in that duty then we will fail the generations to come. For our part, we will support the Government to give priority to legislation to deal with the issue in as comprehensive a fashion as is necessary and appropriate.

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