Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)

If this was the first report on clerical child sex abuse, it would be tragic. The fact that it is one of many indicates the scale of the horror our society has allowed to continue for far too long. I do not believe it is something that would be tolerated or would have happened in any other country. It is a legacy of the privileged position of the Catholic Church and the manner in which it has been intertwined with the development of the State from the framing of the Constitution to its primary role in schools, hospitals and so on, as well as in the horrors in residential institutions as discussed last week. That special or privileged relationship with the church is graphically shown by the all-party motion before the House. On the one hand, it shows how far we have come, but, on the other, it shows that we have not really moved at all. The fact that the original wording was changed from "condemns the actions of the Vatican" to "deplores the actions of the Vatican" sums up the situation in which we find ourselves. I do not just deplore what happened. In the dictionary the meaning of "deplore" is to regret deeply. The feelings of people in this country go way beyond regretting deeply. They are absolutely outraged at what has been allowed to happen. If these actions had been taken in any other country, there is no question but that it would have been deemed to be a hostile act. If the Libyan ambassador behaved in the same way as the Papal Nuncio, there would almost be calls for the Army to assemble at the Libyan border. The reality is that, between the Murphy and Cloyne reports, the Vatican was a party to a criminal conspiracy to prevent the Irish authorities from being informed in a timely fashion of reported cases of abuse. The refusal of the Papal Nuncio to respond to questions is an affront to victims and Irish society at large. As other Deputies have said, at a very minimum, he should have been expelled. One wonders what it would take to have some people here condemn the actions of the church if the revelations in the Cloyne report are not enough for them to do so.

It is clear that words are inadequate to describe the harm inflicted on children abused by the clergy. I express my own and my party's solidarity with the victims and commend them for their bravery in stepping forward and telling their stories to the commission. The fact that these crimes were perpetrated after 1996, by which time the church was supposed to have child protection measures in place in the aftermath of the Brendan Smyth case, goes to the heart of the matter and demonstrates that the public repentance of the church hierarchy cannot be trusted.

This is the most serious incident to date and the lack of prosecutions post the Murphy report means many do not have huge confidence that justice will be meted out to the perpetrators mentioned in the Cloyne report either. This is an issue for which the Minister must account. Much funding has been expended on these reports but very few have been brought to justice. We need to see action in this regard. Obviously, the State is also hugely culpable and while it is very convenient to allow the church to take the blame, it must step up to the mark also. Unless there is full separation of church and State, these issues will never be adequately addressed.

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