Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

About two years ago I had the opportunity to visit a building which housed one of the schools covered by this Bill. Even now, with the passage of decades, to visit one of those buildings as an adult is a searing experience. My clear recollection is of walking down very long corridors with tiny rooms off them. I went into one of the rooms which I was told was preserved in a way that kept it as it had been experienced by the children. The rooms were full of tiny beds side by side where all these children slept and as somebody who was fortunate enough to have been raised in a warm and loving environment, it gave me a glimpse of what those children must have experienced. A Bill such as this and the process we have gone through is scant compensation for what those children endured but I hope it offers a degree of recognition.

I believe it was Deputy McDonald who said earlier that words fail one when talking about this issue. I am reminded of a comment somebody once made: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". While many of the people who endured these experiences find that silence is sometimes the default setting for them, silence is not an option for the State now. Those of us who are speaking about what happened and those in the previous Government tried to bring some degree of recompense for the horrific experiences these children went through. The defining feature of this State's history, or at least of its first half, will be how badly we treated children who did nothing more than be born into a family of a certain background or status. We have a long way to go to make recompense for the way in which these children were treated.

There are four features of this Bill on which I want to speak. Deputy Wallace referred to the confidentiality provision in the original Act. I struggle to understand why this was needed and how it operated. One lesson we have learned very well is that institutions, when threatened, look to protect themselves. Frequently, if not always, they look to protect themselves at the cost of others. One of the most important antidotes to this is transparency and giving people the confidence to talk in the knowledge that, if they do so, they will be listened to. Therefore, I struggle to understand why the State, in putting in place a mechanism to deal with this matter, felt the need to impose a confidentiality clause.

The second point concerns the deadline. Choosing a deadline is always difficult because some always meet it and others do not. For matters as sensitive as this, the choice of deadline is so difficult. It is important, however, that one be fixed. We should acknowledge that the deadline for applications was 2005, which was five and a half years ago. One should question, as other speakers have done, the way in which the deadline is advertised. The briefing material made available to us refers to how the setting up of the fund was advertised through television, radio and a wide variety of publications. What we are now proposing by way of advertising the new deadline looks weak by comparison. It is vital that the kind of effort that went into advertising the setting up of the board be put into advertising its closure.

My final point is on how we should move forward. Sadly, the Cloyne report provides a tragic backdrop to this discussion. The most vital element of our future dealings in this area will be to ensure that the law in this State, irrespective of its flaws, remains supreme. Any ambiguity that arises if an institution believes it has the ability to counter or take the place of any law must be eliminated. Some of the measures the Government is proposing, such as putting in place codes on a statutory basis and the legislation proposed by the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, will go a long way towards doing so.

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