Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic promised to cherish all children of the nation equally. Historians continue to debate whether the word "children" should be ascribed to a literal or figurative meaning, whether children or citizens in general. Whichever is favoured, there is no doubt that children in Ireland were often second class citizens. The shame of Tuam casts a dark shadow over how Irish society treated the most vulnerable of its citizens, children and women in institutions.

The harrowing and gut-wrenching stories of women in Tuam should not have surprised us. After all, many children growing up in the 1960s and 1970s were told that if they did not behave, they would be relegated to sit with the children of sin. Irish society knew or at least was aware of the hell on Earth being inflicted on defenceless, highly vulnerable children and women in institutions. What was their crime only to be born to an unmarried mother or an impoverished family? Poverty is an underlying factor that continues to propel some children into State care. Circumstances of birth resulted in many children from single parent families or lower socioeconomic backgrounds being received into care. An alarming number of these children were systematically abused and exploited.

The legacy of shameful indifference is graphically illustrated in the Ryan report, and the scale and plight of women in Tuam implicates all of Irish society. A chilling feature of the accounts of the plight of what were referred to as "fallen women" has now emerged, along with the unquestioned and apparently unquestionable moral authority of so-called Christian care providers, which had a reckless disregard for vulnerable women and child welfare. We will have another inquiry to follow many reports that prove generations of children were exposed to endemic abuse in institutions run by the State or by religious orders for the State. In 1993, Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness set out the horror of family life for a young girl in the Kilkenny incest case and recommended constitutional change. Regrettably, it took two decades before a proposal to amend the Constitution to protect children was put to the people. In 2009, the commission to inquire into child abuse published its long-awaited report and in 2011 we had the report into the Magdalen laundries. Despite all these reports and inquiries, certain recommendations remain unimplemented. Children remain vulnerable in our society today. There are an insufficient number of social welfare workers for vulnerable children and an insufficient number of people to speak out for children who cannot speak for themselves today.

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