Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will begin with a quote:

Let me tell you what it feels like to be scared ... I remember the first fingers laid on me and what that felt like. My childhood wiped out in a split second. I remember the fright. The confusion. Being too afraid to open my eyes as the IRA man got a kick out of using me like a rag doll.

Those are the words used by Maíria Cahill to describe the sexual abuse she suffered. There are 166 Members of this House. By all accounts, at least 25% of us have had experience of sexual abuse in some shape or form during our lifetimes. Those who have know that the physical scars heal over time. They also know, however, that because of the insidious nature of rape or sexual abuse, the psychological effects last for decades. Those effects shape, inform and infiltrate the remainder of a victim's life.

There have been a great deal of discussion recently with regard to the well-intentioned people in the IRA and Sinn Féin. In my experience, such people help, support and listen. There are thousands of families throughout this country which are dealing in a well-intended but quiet manner with loved ones who have been sexually abused. They listen, cherish, support, counsel, and care about their loved ones. They want to help those who are victims. Those we are well intentioned do not interrogate victims in courts of inquiry for months on end. They do not threaten victims into remaining silence, nor do they enlist victims into deciding the options for punishment for their abusers. They do not place victims in the same room as their abusers in order to read their body language and discover if they are telling the truth. They do not threaten a victim's family and prevent them from going to the police, they do not threaten to sue victims for slander and they certainly do not publicly raise the profile of abusers in their republican propaganda newspaper. Those to whom I refer absolutely and fundamentally do not facilitate abusers to move from one jurisdiction to another, they do not give abusers money and cars to help them on their way and they certainly do not put other children at risk of abuse by the very abusers they are facilitating. These are not the actions of people who are well intentioned.

Deputy Adams recently wrote the following about the IRA on his blog:

Despite the high standards and decency of the vast majority of IRA volunteers, IRA personnel were singularly ill-equipped to deal with these matters. This included very sensitive areas such as responding to demands to take action against rapists and child abusers. The IRA on occasion shot alleged sex offenders or expelled them.

Given that reality has finally been accepted, let me ask the Deputy whether alleged abuser Martin Morris was facilitated by ill-equipped Sinn Féin-IRA in leaving Northern Ireland in July 2000? Was this individual given cash and a car to help him on his way?

Was the ill-equipped Briege Wright, who by her very own admission has years of experience working with sexual and domestic abuse victims in the Falls Women’s Centre and who states she has completed child protection training, well-intentioned when she saw fit to re-traumatise a vulnerable young rape victim by allowing her to be put in a room with her abuser in order that her body language could be read to see if she was telling the truth? Was Bobby Storey well-intentioned when he recently issued a memo stating that if Sinn Féin Party members were making comments about Maíria Cahill, they should only be made if they were measured and rigorously accurate? With glee over recent weeks, Sinn Féin members have abused, vilified and re-traumatised Maíria Cahill, through social media and directly.

Deputy Gerry Adams first denied that the IRA carried out any investigations and said Maíria Cahill's allegations were slurs against Sinn Féin. Then he accepted that there were IRA investigations, but not into Maíria Cahill's case. His latest stance is that he does not know whether there was an IRA investigation into Maíria Cahill’s case. I am dizzy from the number of changes to a story by a man who brought his own niece to meet her abuser, his brother, Liam Adams, face to face. I am at a loss to know why he would bring his own niece to meet her abuser face to face in a well-intentioned way to help her.

Deputy Adams says there is no corporate way of verifying these matters. These are weasel words to justify inaction. Sinn Féin has many people with a lot of knowledge, not least of whom is Deputy Gerry Adams. Thirty years on from the horrendous gun attack on Brian Stack, Deputy Adams had no problem putting Mr. Stack's sons in a blacked-out van and driving them to an undisclosed location where a former Provisional IRA chief admitted responsibility for their father’s murder. It is funny how there was a corporate way of verifying that heinous murder but no corporate way to proceed now.

Deputy Adams, why did you lie about the knowledge of your brother’s abuse of your niece, another young woman who came to you for help? You turned on her mother-----

See this speech in context