Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

While Sinn Féin supports the motion, we would have preferred to see the stronger language contained in a previous draft employed. The motion expresses how the House deplores the Vatican's intervention which contributed to the undermining of the child protection frameworks and guidelines of the State and Irish bishops. Previously, the motion expressed condemnation. We in Sinn Féin still express condemnation of this scandalous intervention.

The events in Cloyne documented in the report may span a considerable period, but they did not take place 100 years ago. There was still abuse in Cloyne while preparations for the commencement of the deliberations of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children were under way. It continued up to a couple of years ago.

This is a 400-page document that shows that 17 years after the Brendan Smyth debacle brought down the then Fianna Fáil-Labour Party Government in 1994, the official Catholic Church has learned nothing. While the State has neglected its duties by failing to put mandatory reporting requirements in place earlier, in Cloyne Bishop John Magee held Canon Law superior to the civil law of the land. That disposition directly led to the abuse of more children through not adhering to correct reporting procedures and, thereby, placed more children at risk.

How many inquiries do we have to go through before real action is taken on this dreadful neglect? We have seen the Murphy, Ferns and Cloyne reports. The Catholic Church still controls many of our schools. As stated, this report investigates incidents which only took place a short number of years ago. I shudder to think of the real facts, the full story. Will more reports and inquiries on the lack of adherence to reporting protocols have to be commissioned?

The Papal Nuncio refused to answer queries from a commission of inquiry and claimed diplomatic immunity. The same Papal Nuncio still has the role of issuing Vatican instructions to the bishops in this country. I expect that if a school system operated and directly controlled by a third party state in Ireland consistently failed to report allegations of child sexual abuse against its teachers and ancillary employees to the Garda, that state's ambassador would be required to answer questions. If he or she failed to do so, he or she would be asked to leave. The church is not above the law and it is high time it stopped thinking it was. Fr. Federico Lombardi may claim his recent remarks were made in a personal capacity, but this is the disingenuous double-speak that must come to an end.

Bishop John Magee had no interest in protecting the children of Cloyne and fobbed off his responsibility to Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan who equally had no interest in reporting the abuse of children to the authorities. Bishop John Magee actively and knowingly lied to the Government, the health service and the Garda. He concealed information on the crimes committed by the priests in his diocese. He actively engaged in the reckless and, at times, wilful endangerment of children.

There are prosecutions to be faced by those who perpetrated crimes against children, either through directly abusing them or being complicit in the cover-up of their abuse. Nothing less, I fear, will bring to an end this lurid regime.

Two thirds of complaints made between 1996 and 2008 were not reported to the Garda and no complaint was passed to the Health Service Executive during this period. While Members of this House, including the current Ministers for Children and Youth Affairs and Justice and Equality, were sitting in a committee room deliberating on the rights of children, Bishop John Magee was still not reporting allegations of abuse.

The cardinals may have apologised for this report, but that is not good enough. The official church has disgraced itself in the handling of this most serious of issues. It is absolutely disgusting and goes right to the top. The bishops, with the Vatican, played a major role in aggravating the level of abuse of children in Ireland. The Cloyne report, measured in its tone, has found the Vatican's reaction to the 1996 framework document was "entirely unhelpful" to any bishop who wanted to implement it, while giving any bishop the individual freedom to ignore it. We now need cast-iron guarantees from the church authorities that they will adhere to the civil law when it comes to the mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse when it is introduced with immediate effect. They have a moral obligation to do so. However, moral obligations on members of the clergy in Cloyne have not worked well in the past. Accordingly, we also need cast-iron guarantees from the State that if any more flagrant breaches of the law which we have seen on many occasions in the past must be held to account.

For the Vatican to state the framework document of 1997 was merely a study document rather than an official document was nothing short of an insult to the survivors and victims of abuse. It stated it had "serious reservations of a moral and canonical nature" about the document. It is now up to it to state exactly what it meant by having moral reservations about reporting allegations of abuse or the actual knowledge that some Cloyne clerics were child molesters.

The Vatican, through the Papal Nuncio, refused to explain to the commission of inquiry in 2005 why the updated guidelines were not recognised officially by the church. Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan actively obstructed the implementation of these guidelines in Cloyne. It is this complete and unreserved disregard that some senior voices in the church have for child protection in this case that is hard to stomach. There have now been three statutory inquiries into abuse in church dioceses in Ireland in which child protection procedures were found wanting. Will there be more?

Only in 2009 Cardinal Seán Brady said Bishop John Magee was "dependable and reliable" and that he did not need to resign. This was a man who had been found by the church's own national board for safeguarding children to be presiding over practices that were both inadequate and actually dangerous. It is a scandal.

Many have said we can learn from all of these reports. It is hard to see how so many reports highlighting similar failures can all have different lessons from which we can learn. In looking at the lessons of the Cloyne report, will the Minister agree we can teach others? Last December the Executive in the Six Counties announced the setting up of an inquiry into historical institutional abuse in the North. A cross-departmental working group set up to examine how an inquiry would proceed reported to the Executive almost a fortnight ago. A decision will be made on how to investigate crimes committed in institutions, both those run by the Catholic Church and State-run institutions, in the autumn. The Minister will also be aware that several dioceses, including Raphoe, Derry, Clogher and Armagh, stretch across the Border. In looking at possible future inquiries in other dioceses, it may be useful to co-ordinate with the initiative under way in the Six Counties. Members of the Northern Executive may also benefit from the experience of Members, victims groups and wider civil society as to how the inquiries into abuse in the Twenty-six Counties have been handled. Several meetings with individuals have taken place. We may benefit from having a more structured or formal approach.

If the Vatican has demonstrated contempt and disregard for the concerns of the State and the abuse investigations, it is only in keeping with the arrogance with which it approaches the mechanisms for the protection of international human rights. The Vatican was due to submit its second report under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1997. Fourteen years on, it still has not done so. It was supposed to submit its first report under the UN Convention against Torture in 2003. Eight years on, it still has not done so.

In countries and continents across the world the Catholic Church, acting as a religious organisation when it suits its interests and as a state with all the protections that entails when it suits, has covered up the abuse and torture of hundreds of thousands of innocent children and young people. While many of these cases may have occurred in the past, the cover-ups are taking place today. The determination to avoid accountability is therefore today's crime.

As a candidate country for the United Nations Human Rights Council and one struggling to deal with the legacies of generations of abuse, Ireland should be able to show leadership on the international stage by calling on the Vatican to stop acting like a rogue state and live up to the commitments it has made by signing and ratifying binding international human rights treaties. As a Catholic, it is my strong belief that my church should not be a reluctant convert to the protection of human rights and children. Surely it should be in the global vanguard in respect of these issues. That it is not saddens and offends. This must change.

The Vatican has behaved disgracefully. Its ambiguous nature, claiming to be a state and expecting to be treated thus internationally but without the burden of its agents having to adhere to national laws in other states, has meant it has received preferential treatment under a succession of Irish Governments. The persistent attitude of acting solely in the interests of self-protection is fundamentally anti-Christian. It is sad to note there is a real likelihood that those who for so long have been ordained with this doctrine of complicity and silence will not easily abandon such habits. That said, it is important to reflect that there are many good priests in all dioceses of the Catholic Church.

When Israel compromised Irish passports it was taken to task. Hundreds of children and young people have been raped and abused by members of an institution controlled by the Vatican. Their actions led to the amplification of the devastating emotional and psychological consequences of abuse. Are we to truly believe this is a matter of just a few bad eggs? It is striking that the Cloyne report found there were concerns raised about almost 8% of the 163 priests serving in the diocese in 1996. It is ten years since the State's official apology for its role in abuse yet the response by the relevant authorities in the report was demonstrably wholly inadequate. The church failed to uphold child protection procedures and repeatedly failed to report complaints to the Garda. Meanwhile, the Garda failed to fully investigate complaints. The State must apologise again to the victims of abuse for its failings.

The report details one case where, despite Garda assurances, the commission found no evidence of police investigations into allegations by two women against a single priest. The commission stated it was concerned and does not accept there was a proper investigation into the complaints against the priest named as Father Corin. I welcome the joint statement issued by the Ministers for Justice and Equality and Children and Youth Affairs on the publication of the report wherein they express "profound sorrow" regarding the failures of the State. While this motion may be about Cloyne, the State still has questions to answer regarding its procedures. There is an overwhelming sense of déjÀ vu with all of this.

Only this week, as Deputies are aware, we heard of a case in County Donegal where the owners of a school premises continued to employ a man convicted of sexually assaulting a young male despite the Garda expressing concern about the matter. I am informed that the owner of the school was in court when the individual in question was convicted on a litany of sample rape and abuse charges, including the making of child pornography. The head of the school stated the keys of the building were taken from him when the school authorities learned of his conviction. Despite this, the individual in question continued to do odd jobs around the school premises. Michael Ferry should never have been allowed to set foot inside the walls of a school or any premises that catered to the needs of children and young adults ever again. How many other similar cases are there across this country? Either way, this case shows a wretched failure of procedure within the school in question and demonstrates the need for the Government to bring forward the publication of the national vetting bureau Bill and establish the long awaited child welfare and protection agency. I ask the Government to resource these bodies accordingly and ensure they are effective and capable of carrying out their responsibilities. Procedures, as we have seen ad nauseam, are of no use unless implemented. I wish the Ministers for Justice and Equality and Children and Youth Affairs well in ensuring these measures are put in place at the earliest opportunity.

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