Joe O'Reilly (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

People must understand that in many instances the religious orders have particular demographic structures which make it expensive for their members to live in nursing homes, to be given supported care, etc. Cognisance must be taken of that fact. The solution to one travesty of justice must not take the form of imposing another. Where there are assets and where there is a capacity to pay, however, it would be cathartic for the religious orders and would form part of the recovery process and allow them to identify with the survivors in a very practical way if they made a financial contribution to the compensation fund.

That must be part of the solution. It is not sufficient that they do not make any input. A State element by way of a significant contribution from the State is needed because there is direct State responsibility in the ways I identified earlier, but there is also collective responsibility on all of us in the way our values, judgmental attitudes and what we deemed as respectability contributed to the travesty that was the injustice in these homes. We all contributed and therefore there is a major responsibility on the State, but there is a similar responsibility on the religious orders that have assets to make a real contribution.

It is worthy to note that many of the women who were the perpetrators of these injustices were themselves victims in that they belonged to a culture where women religious were under-valued. The women who had been in the homes for quite a while developed a status of being in charge of their peers and those who had entered the homes laterally, and they became quite cruel in their administration of justice. There is a hierarchy of victims, therefore. There were victims at all levels in these institutions, and that merits recognition.

We first had the Taoiseach's apology but Members of this House in this debate must acknowledge our collective guilt. That must be followed by real compensation to ensure that the needs of every victim are addressed. That should and will happen under Mr. Justice Quirke's recommendation, and part of that should be the religious orders making a contribution.

The ultimate tribute we can pay to the victims, and the ultimate way we can remove ourselves from this sad episode in our history, is to ensure that these crimes are not repeated. We must be conscious also of having the highest standards where people are in institutional care, the highest standard of supervision, particularly in our geriatric services and in our services for disabled people, and that asylum seekers here are treated with dignity and respect. That is the challenge for us now. The way we can most comprehensively honour the victims is by making sure that what happened to them is never repeated.

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