Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)

I will put on record the deep concern to which I referred at the outset and that everyone feels with regard to this situation. Many victims outside of Ireland have gone on record to state they are the ones who are living away, lost, lonely, in poor health and who have been left out of the equation. Moreover, they still consider themselves to be left out of the equation and this must be addressed. I wish to read into the record one particular story I received. It does not constitute personal abuse of the Minister and does not even mention him but it gives someone's story and puts it on the record. Such people have the right to have their voices heard. This individual stated:

I am a survivor of sixteen years of brutal abuse in Tullamore Ireland. ... My abuse was starvation, broken bones and we were forced out to steal for our mother. For sixteen years the Midland health board watched on and took notes of our abuse but [did] nothing. I was in hospital for most of my young life with malnutrition and broken bones ... At the age of eleven I was put into care in Galway and then on to Lusk in Dublin. While I was in these schools, I was molested by a Christian brother and by a fellow inmate. I suffer severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have now been put on disability because I have a hard time living with my [post-traumatic stress disorder]. Abuse has destroyed my life and is with me 24/7.

He went on to outline his circumstances but then concluded by stating:

This Statutory fund has nothing [to offer me]. ... This is no good to those [of us] who have been left disabled or who are too old. Irish victim support groups have refused to help victims who live outside Ireland. I do not think that these groups should receive [money]...

He pointed out that voices like his needed to be heard.

Many survivors take the view that the creation of a statutory Act to regulate the use of €110 million, painfully recovered from Catholic orders, is another bureaucratic nightmare and there are simpler ways of dealing with this. It has taken ten years to disburse the €12.7 million from the education fund. Moreover, I understand that yesterday, the Minister or officials from his Department had meetings with some of the groups involved that sought changes to this legislation. These changes are based on the fact that the youngest victims are now 60 years of age and are not getting any younger and many of them are significantly older. Consequently, the longer one delays and the more bureaucratic one is, the less access those people, who everyone claims to wish to support, will have to resources. At the meeting yesterday, I understand it was not admitted by either the Minister or representatives of his Department that it would take at least two years to set up this fund after which the application process would begin to kick in, a long and cumbersome process that would deny access to many of the victims.

What they sought instead, perfectly legitimately in my view, is that the funds be divided up and distributed directly to those who need them.

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