Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The Ryan report and the Murphy commission have set out a litany of abuse, evil, crimes and omissions which have caused and will cause Ireland to have to rewrite its social and political history. In that sense, they have done a great service to our country and society in terms of knowing the facts. I share with my colleagues on both sides of the House an abhorrence and disgust at the crimes and crimes of omission outlined in the report. They have been well ventilated by my colleagues.

While the impact does not diminish with repetition, I refer to one issue in the short time which is available to me this evening before the debate resumes on Thursday. It is a matter to which the Taoiseach referred in his comments. Yesterday I met the new assistant national director of the HSE with responsibility for children and family services to discuss the progress and scope of the HSE's audit of child protection practices within Catholic diocese and religious orders. The audit, as currently designed, will be finalised by 22 December 2009 in respect of the dioceses. It is hoped that the audit of religious orders may also be completed by that date. A number of dioceses have asked to re-submit their questionnaire responses and the requests have been assented to, which will of necessity entail a delay in the process.

The returns have been submitted and child care managers who have undertaken the task of engaging with the dioceses are finalising their work which involves face-to-face interviews with each diocese. The assistant national director to which I referred, who was commended by Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy for the way in which he carried out his previous role as director of child protection in the Archdiocese of Dublin, has suggested that to verify the data provided, additional information will be required from the HSE in respect of each diocese.

He has recommended that, in addition to the statistical information already supplied, the HSE's child care managers should request from the relevant ordinary, that is, the diocesan bishops and provincials of each religious order, the names of the complainant and the person against whom the complaint was made in respect of each allegation referenced in the audit return, the name and location of where the matter was reported to the HSE and the Garda Síochána and the date the report was made.

The child care manager will then arrange that each file is checked internally in the HSE to ensure the matter has been dealt with appropriately by the State and each diocese in question. A member of the national children and family social services team in the HSE will then liaise with the Garda Síochána to ensure receipt of all the allegations, as referenced in the audit. The collation of this additional information will, according the assistant national director, allow the HSE to submit to me a more detailed and comprehensive report.

I fully agree with this proposal and notified my support for this approach to the HSE this morning. It will write to each bishop requesting the additional information. The national audit has been criticised as a statistical exercise which is of little, if any, use. However, it should be remembered that the need for such an audit arose out of the recommendations in the Ferns report.

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