Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am very conscious that many victims of abuse across Ireland are listening to the debate. One in four people has suffered abuse. Many have never disclosed their abuse to anyone. Many have yet to take the first step in recovery to disclose their abuse to a friend, family member, counsellor or garda. Many have been failed by this State.

The recent public discussion around allegations made by Maíria Cahill have also brought very sharply into public focus the fact that at a time in the North where large sections of the population did not trust or engage with the RUC, victims of abuse were also failed. A spokesperson for the Belfast Rape Crisis Collective said in 1984:

There are strong and obvious reasons why many women who are raped in the North do not go to the RUC to make a complaint. It must be stressed that even aside from the facts of war and the fact that the legal system has been discredited on many fronts....

The writer goes on to make a different point. In this climate of fear and alienation, many in the nationalist community turned to the IRA to enforce a policing role it was ill-equipped to perform. Others felt unable to seek support or justice from any channel.

IRA volunteers were ordinary men and women. They had no training in dealing with criminality and no resources, legal or judicial or penal, to help respond to or to investigate allegations of anti-social behaviour, car theft, robbery, death riding, sexual abuse and rape or any of the other criminal actions that a normal police service deals with every day. When other warnings, appeals or community interventions failed, the IRA punished offenders. That is a matter of public fact and has been for a very long time. Some criminals, including alleged sex abusers, were shot and expelled. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some went to Britain. Some - and this again is a matter of public record - were resettled by the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders and this continues to this day. This project, NIACRO, was supported by the probation service and other statutory bodies and was funded and resourced and gave evidence in Westminster.

What is clear, whatever the motivations of those involved, is the actions of the IRA were inadequate and inappropriate in seeking to tackle criminality and we cannot change that. I have acknowledged the failure of the IRA to deal properly with these difficult issues and, for that, I have apologised. In my view, as Uachtarán Shinn Féin, it is right and proper to face up to mistakes or failures, particularly as part of the need to ensure these mistakes are not repeated. The end result of all this is that some survivors of abuse did not get the support they needed nor the justice they deserve. They were failed by the state, by the RUC, by social services and, in some cases, by republicans.

There is very clearly a need for society to deal with this issue. We need to address the failures of the past in the here and now. We must ensure victims are supported, the community safeguarded and abusers dealt with through the legal process. Sinn Féin has sought to deal with the issue in a victim-centred way. There is an onus on all of us here to support all victims of abuse and, as the Taoiseach has acknowledged, the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, wrote to the First Minister, Peter Robinson, and to the Taoiseach to propose the establishment through the North South Ministerial Council of an all-island process to deal with the issue of support mechanisms for those who were victims of sexual abuse during the conflict. The objective would be to ensure greater access to counselling and other supports for victims and to facilitate victims and survivors in assessing the justice system and making official complaints, if that is what they wish. This would empower all victims and survivors of abuse to fully avail of existing services to get the justice they need and deserve. This needs to be a priority cross-Border initiative added on to the remit of the Government and the northern executive with whatever powers it needs to compel people to be called forward. Sinn Féin and I fully endorse the proposal by the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness.

The priority has to be ensure victims and survivors have professional services, including counselling and therapy, a channel through which complaints can be made to the appropriate statutory agency or police service and the anonymity and confidentiality of victims and survivors if they wish not be identified must be acknowledged and protected. This initiative should also be fully resourced by the executive and by the Irish Government. Surely there is, for all the words that have been said here, agreement in this Dáil on the urgent need for an all-island victim-centred process to ensure greater access to counselling and other supports for those who were victims of sexual abuse and who could not access justice during the conflict or who were failed and let down.

Survivors and victims who come forward to Sinn Féin will be and have been supported in accessing appropriate support services and the appropriate authorities. I have called on former IRA volunteers who have any information whatsoever on the expulsion of abusers to bring that information to the appropriate authorities. We are calling, and I do so again, for everyone with any information whatsoever to come forward, yet Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour have claimed that Sinn Féin is engaged in a cover-up. Let me be clear, as a citizen and a Teachta Dála honoured to represent the people of Louth, I have worked with An Garda Síochána and have given it information on criminality, including allegations of abuse. I also work with the PSNI. I have moved across each state in terms of crime that has been committed in the Border region and I will continue to do so. So, Sinn Féin has not been involved in the charges levelled against it of a cover-up of abuse. Sinn Féin has sought to help and provide advice to those who are at risk and to urge anyone with information to bring it forward.

In the past few weeks, a barrage of malicious allegations have been made against republicans. There is one accusation that most people, including myself, accept: Maíria Cahill was the victim of sexual abuse.

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