Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I welcome the Bill and thank the Minister, Deputy Quinn, for bringing it before the House. When the Ryan report was published it met with a huge outcry over how this could have happened. It happened because church and State acted in collusion to brush all these unfortunate incidents under the carpet. The church should never have been invited in to run our State, and the State should never have been tied hand-in-hand with the church. It had a corrosive effect on the State and on the Catholic church, of which I am a member. In the past ten or 15 years, both church and State have gone their own ways, which is beneficial for both. The church has moved towards a more liberal attitude in the past 15 or 20 years, and I welcome that.

The events the Bill seeks to deal with should never have happened, however. The State neglected some 15,000 people who were also neglected by the church which ran these facilities for the State. I know from those who attend my constituency clinics that they are angry and feel let down. Deputy Connaughton rightly pointed out that the minute they were able to leave these institutions they took the boat to get away from this country, which turned its back on them.

When the Ryan report was published, for once, we could not blame the British. This was of our own making. The situation was an Irish solution to an Irish problem. We called ourselves Christian and caring. We did not care for the vulnerable young people in these institutions. There were so many tiers in our society then, with people either belonging to a particular political party, group or the church. We must now ensure that everyone is equal and is given the same opportunities.

The €128 million deal agreed was not in the interests of this State. I believe the State got a very raw deal and that the church should come up with more funding. I believe it will do so. I am not here to criticise the church, which has done much good work down through the years. Unfortunately, however, there was no vetting procedure in place therein, which allowed people with no interest in Christianity to infiltrate its ranks and undermine young innocent children. We must now ensure that systems are put in place to ensure this does not happen again.

The fund must provide for counselling, mental health, education and housing services. I am glad that the Bill provides that further services can be prescribed because despite that everything has been done to contact those involved, there are still people living outside of this country who do not know to what they are entitled and who have not availed of these services. I welcome that it has been provided in the Bill that further services can be prescribed.

It is important we ensure that the fund is spent on front line services rather than on administration. I welcome the Bill. I believe the Ryan report was the line in the sand in terms of how this State deals with this abuse. We have grown up and are a lot more open. Unfortunately, however, the 15,000 people who endured this abuse are still angry, and rightly so.

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