Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Every generation seems to carry with it its own set of scandals. I met Louise O'Keeffe and admired her courage in making the breakthrough in her case and the years that she fought for that. Deputy Jan O'Sullivan was Minister for Education and Skills and dealing with this when the outcome eventually occurred. The State has been cautious, to put it mildly, about this. What Deputy Martin is talking about now in the language he uses here is not just those who have come forward and were sexually abused in primary schools, but about looking at all the generations who went through primary schools, some of whom might not have understood the nature of sexual abuse or whatever. It seems to me that what Deputy Martin is saying is that we should go beyond just the cases that have been mentioned by him and one that was mentioned by Deputy O'Dea. I have no idea how many thousands of cases may come forward with views that they were sexually abused or not in the primary school system which has been up and running since the foundation of the State and long before that. If Deputy Martin is asking me that we reflect further on the preparation of a further case going back to the European Court of Human Rights, that is one thing. If he is now asking me to comment on the possibility of an enormous scale of sexual abuse over 100 years in the primary school system, that is a different matter. The language of what he has been referring to has been that people in the primary school system are being abused right under our noses.

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