Mary O'Rourke (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

While I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate, I wish it was not necessary to have it. I congratulate Judge Yvonne Murphy in respect of the comprehensive report she has produced, which is shocking, damning and obscene. I could add many more adjectives which would not even begin to sum up all of this.

I believe that the church is sowing seeds for further disaffiliation with the people who claim to be churchgoers. It has lost affinity with its people. To my mind, the reason for this is that the words of the Gospel by which we all, in various measures, strive to live are not exemplified in the institutions of the church which is riddled with out-of-date conformist rules which have no resonance whatsoever with ordinary people in terms of how they live their lives. I was struck by an article by Dr. Maureen Gaffney in The Irish Times yesterday in which she spoke about the church's archaic rules on contraception. Who pays heed to them? The church, however, clings to them as if they were a totem pole of wonderful knowledge.

There are also the archaic rules on remarriage in which the church denies marriage to a person who wishes to remarry after a State divorce. The person cannot have a full marriage ceremony in a church. The church persists with an opaque and impenetrable system of annulment, which one can secure after something like 95 years and all sorts of tribunals of inquiry and so forth. Only then is one allowed to have a church marriage. It is appalling that when a couple part and divorce and each one wishes to marry again, they cannot go to a church of their choosing, if they are members of the Catholic faith, and ask that their second marriage be recognised. Until the church starts to have an affinity again with ordinary people and their ordinary, everyday problems, it is doomed to failure and we are doomed too.

I noticed that in the various interviews given by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and other church personnel last weekend they all very quickly said the report was terrible and then continued with the word "but". I urge them to get rid of the buts; they should just say they are sorry without the word "but" being added to it. They said there was no redress for extra-familial sexual abuse. There is. It is addressed by section 3 of the Child Care Act 1991. It is incorrect to say there is no access to redress. There is also the Oireachtas committee report on soft information, which was produced under my watch. I understand from the Minister that the heads of a Bill in that regard are to be brought to the Cabinet before Christmas. I am glad to hear that because we have waited too long for it. At least we now know the legislation will be produced and that it can be done without a referendum.

I was struck by something Deputy Shatter mentioned, the sheer discourtesy of a body called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, or something with an equally convoluted title. This wonderful doctrine body, wherever it is, does not reply to letters. Consider the discourtesy of it, and the discourtesy of the head of the Vatican, parading around Ireland in his wonderful glitzy clothes but not replying to letters and not seeing fit to talk to his counterpart, whoever that is. It is just not good enough.

Like the Minister, Deputy Barry Andrews, I saw the letter to The Irish Times during the week which notes the uncanny moving of priests from one parish to another north of the Liffey. That was quite telling in what it implied. It was cynical. If a child came home from one of those schools, church halls or churches and reported something, they would get a cuff on the ear and be told: "How dare you talk about the good Father, when he is so good and kind" and so forth. The map that was produced showed clearly how they were moved from one parish to another. They did not fear that in those parishes they would be called to account or order. The parents in those parishes would say all is well and let the matter go.

There is another matter on which I cannot get a definite answer. When I was Minister for Education many years ago a programme was devised by the INTO and the Department, which took the lead role, called the Stay Safe programme. It was piloted in some primary schools before being provided in all schools. However, it is not available in all schools. Why is that?

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