Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

No matter how often the issue of abuse in institutions, including religious institutions, is discussed, it is almost impossible not to be shocked and horrified all over again by the kind of nihilistic viciousness that was visited on so many innocent children, whose only crime was to be born poor, to a single parent or to be orphans. After so many years of dealing with the tragic aftermath of the systemic and endemic abuse of women and children in religious and State institutions, it is almost impossible to understand why there any survivors whose abuse has yet to be acknowledged or accepted by the State.

The debate surrounding the proposed residential institutions statutory fund highlights yet again the State's failure to tackle fully the scale and the depth of the wrong it committed against women and children over so many decades. Some survivors, even those who have received awards from the redress board, continue to feel abandoned and disenfranchised. It is important we understand that support, services and redress are ongoing commitments of the State to the children and women it failed to protect.

Some hard lessons have been learned and the Government's commitment yesterday, following the publication of the Cloyne report, to do everything it can to make sure the State is doing all it can to protect children is welcome. I note that the commission of investigation into the Catholic diocese of Cloyne is not convinced the State's laws and guidelines are sufficiently strong and clear to protect children. The commitment of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to address this shortfall through promised legislation, enhanced co-operation from Departments and better use of existing regulations is a positive response. However the new Government's response to the Cloyne report is starkly at odds with its response to the abuse of women and children in the Bethany home and at Magdalene laundries.

The continued exclusion of Bethany Home from the redress board is wrong and the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn's, recent rationale for maintaining this exclusion does not stand up to scrutiny. The Minister restates the position that Bethany Home did not come within the scope of the redress scheme as it operated as a mother and baby home. However, St. Patrick's mother and baby home, a Roman Catholic-run institution, was added to the redress scheme in 2004. The charge of sectarianism is a hard one for the Government to shake off. The Minister goes on to state that the redress scheme was specifically designed to deal with abuse in a range of residential institutions for which public bodies had responsibility. Between 1924 and 1965 the courts referred women to Bethany Home. Statutory inspection of maternity homes began in 1934 and Bethany Home registered in 1935. As far back as 1939, standards of care were reported within the Department with responsibility for local government and public health and public criticism of Bethany Home was published in The Irish Times. There is an ocean of evidence to illustrate the State's neglect to adequately protect these women and children for whom it was ultimately responsible.

In 1939, the State's deputy chief medical officer ignored the advice of a departmental inspector who wanted a Bethany Home nurse prosecuted for severe neglect. Not only did the medical officer brush off the high rate of infant mortality with a shamefully ignorant view that it was a well known fact illegitimate children were delicate, but he then went on declare that Bethany Home's problem was that it was converting Catholics to Protestantism. On that basis, on his final visit to the home it was agreed that Catholics would no longer be admitted to it. The price paid by the children the State failed to protect during this time is heartbreaking. The graves of 219 children who died there between 1922 and 1949 were found in Mount Jerome cemetery in Dublin last year. Some 54 of those children died from convulsions, while a further 41 died from heart failure and 26 from malnutrition.

The Minister of State with responsibility for equality issues, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, was absolutely correct when, as an Opposition Member, she said last May:

I believe that the Bethany Home should be included within the Irish Government's redress scheme so that people who suffered the horrors of abuse in the institution, on the wink and nod of the State, can be afforded the reparations that they deserve.

Survivors have described how the State did nothing to prevent children in that institutions being sent to dysfunctional families in the State and in the Six Counties, chosen solely for religious purposes rather than child welfare-centred criteria. Again, the State stood by and let this happen.

The Minister knows all of this, which is what makes his refusal to reverse Fianna Fáil's decision to exclude the Bethany Home from the redress scheme all the more unfathomable. My colleague, Deputy Seán Crowe, has submitted an amendment to the Bill which would extend the closing date for applications to 2013. This would facilitate survivors of the Bethany Home in seeking redress, assuming the Government reverses its decision to exclude them from the remit of the redress board.

The plight of the survivors of the Magdalene laundries must also be addressed urgently. Evidence given recently on behalf of the State to the UN Committee against Torture regarding what went on in these institutions was nothing short of shameful and disgraceful. Fortunately, the ensuing pressure on the Government persuaded it finally to set up a statutory investigation into allegations of torture against women and children in the laundries. The interdepartmental committee, chaired by Senator Martin McAleese, to establish the facts of the State's involvement with the Magdalene laundries and to produce a narrative detailing such interaction is a step in the right direction, but only a single step. The refusal to date of the Minister for Justice and Equality, despite numerous requests, to publish the interdepartmental committee's terms of reference is again deeply disappointing. Concerns remain following the State's evidence to the UN Committee against Torture that the interdepartmental committee's investigation will not include acts of omission.

Survivors of Magdalene laundries need and deserve a separate redress mechanism. These women and children were incarcerated in institutions, often for a lifetime, and the State knowingly failed them. When in opposition, the Minister voiced his criticism of the previous Government's treatment of the Magdalene survivors. The Government is now in a position to right this wrong on behalf of the State.

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