Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In July 2016 on Leaders' Questions, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Richard Bruton, quoted a figure of 210 victims whose cases are going through the courts. There is a sense there is a finite number which can be dealt with. As late as this summer, some of these victims were threatened with legal costs. From the victims' perspective, the State is adversarial the whole way through, even where convictions have been secured against the abusers. By any objective yardstick or analysis of it, particularly given that a 17-judge European court made it clear the State was liable, there is a sense the State is welching on its liability in trying to circumvent it. It is not being holistic, generous or following through in the spirit which most Members would have thought would have been the order of the day.

I know the Taoiseach is very busy, but I am raising this in a non-political way. Every Member will agree we need to look afresh at the cases involved and we, as a State, should be approaching this far differently than we have been. The State has been too punitive and too adversarial against the individuals concerned. The individuals in question have been to hell and back.

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