Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have to make the point that 99% of the known survivors do not accept that the scheme is meeting their need for justice. On that aspect, there is no reference to the perpetrators of this most cruel treatment. If a survivor accepts the payments, she has to waive irrevocably all rights and entitlements and "indemnify and hold harmless" the people responsible for imposing this suffering on them. I do not know how we can expect survivors to be willing to accept this, as it goes against what the United Nation's Human Rights Committee advocated. The chairperson of that committee said:

I simply don’t understand how the State can look the other way at what seems to have been a systematic assault on people who weren’t in a position to resist or even give consent in many cases. We called for prosecutions explicitly and I would hope, I have to hope, that the recommendation won’t be ignored.

The ladies in question are not getting justice and it seems that the State is complicit in allowing the individuals, groups and institutions that were involved in this treatment to escape any sense of justice. I do not know what the Taoiseach thinks about restorative justice, but it is a very powerful tool. The ladies in question are being denied restorative justice and, if they take the payments, they will be denied the opportunity to go to court. They are being put in a very difficult position. At the very least, can there be a withdrawal of the waiver because there is an understanding that it is unlawful and a three year entry period for those who want to make a claim?

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