Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am taking the full time of ten minutes.

There is no doubt that Maíria Cahill has suffered a horrendous crime and she deserves justice. Anyone who played any role in preventing the truth from coming out over the years should be held accountable. Both the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil Party leader have said that she showed great courage and that is completely true. It must be incredibly difficult to tell that story. I can understand why many women do not tell it. Her courage will give a lot of others courage because it will be an inspiration to many.

In the past two years since we became involved in the Garda issues and abuses, a lot of people have come to us with terrible stories and one would not be well listening to them. I often wonder how in God's name can psychotherapists listen to the stories and still live normal lives considering what they have to absorb. What Maíria Cahill has done will make a difference to a lot of people. Some people have come to us and have had the courage to tell their story. Many have come to us and told their stories but were afraid to put those stories into the public domain and we have not done so. They remain afraid.

I am not long in this place and I do not feel it is my natural environment but I find it difficult to deal with the stories we have heard and I have no doubt that Maíria Cahill will understand how these people feel. I refer to people like Cynthia Owen. She wrote letters to many Members of the House. In her letter to the Taoiseach she said, "I cannot help but wonder why you would not want to meet with the mother of Ireland's youngest murder victim, my day-old infant, Noleen Murphy, given that her father could be a retired garda and she was murdered to protect those who raped me as a child and made me pregnant". Sarah Bland was horrifically raped and abused by her father and subsequently raped again by the establishment, by the lack of action taken to protect her. A former justice Minister was involved in her case and also failed to protect her. Eamon Tuohey lost his son, Shane, and he would love for the truth to come out because that has not happened. Jim Goonan is dead and his family would like the truth to come out. They say that the gardaí did not protect the crime scene and that they contaminated the evidence. There should be an investigation. Lucia O'Farrell lost her son, Shane, and she believes that if things had been done differently her son might be alive.

There are not many people in this House who have not heard the details of the case of Father Molloy. His nephew, Bill Maher, has fought for many years for an independent public inquiry to get to the truth. It was reported that a leading politician was in the room when he was killed. Many people in here have been approached while in opposition and have offered some support but when they got into power they refused to do anything about it. More than 200 people have come to us with their stories. However, these people have not had an independent hearing of their case as they would wish to have. Their lives are destroyed, just as the life of Maíria Cahill has been destroyed by her experience. I have no doubt but that Maíria Cahill feels for the people who have suffered like she has suffered.

This is a strange country in many ways and I do not wish to go back over the history of the State and all that has happened but it leaves much to be desired. We still do not do things like we should. A great number of people are not getting justice.

I am delighted that the Maíria Cahill case has been raised and I am delighted that the Government is taking it seriously and it will do something for so many people who have suffered the same crime. However, forgive me if I suspect that kicking the living daylights out of Sinn Féin is part of this because if the story was not true then the Government would give the same attention to it as to these other cases, many of which are currently before a review mechanism. These cases are not getting the same attention they deserve. Maíria Cahill's case deserves every minute of the attention it is getting but so do the others.

There are many things to which we will not own up. I will never forget the venom from the backbenchers when we questioned how the Garda Síochána operates. We were not supposed to challenge what happens and how gardaí behave - the attitude is that they are great. One report has followed another in which this assumption is questioned. I refer to the report published yesterday by the Garda Síochána Inspectorate which does not contain much that is new. I did not read anything that shocked me. I did not find anything shocking in the Guerin report because we were raising those issues for nearly two years in this House.

We hear from people who were at the receiving end of it and from gardaí who were not happy with how the force operated. In this country one is damned from a height for challenging the status quo or the establishment. Why do we not use the Maíria Cahill case as a measure by which to do things differently and better for everybody?

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