Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is an incredibly important issue, so I thank the Minister for coming in to respond to it today. Today in the Dáil, the Taoiseach said the State could have acted, but did not. It was a very welcome comment. He also said the abuse compensation scheme was not working, which was also a very welcome and significant comment.

This is a topic in which I have a deep personal interest, having worked closely for a number of years with the lads from VOCADS and Creagh Lane in Limerick. To be honest, I am absolutely disgusted at how survivors of historical child sexual abuse have been treated by Fine Gael and by previous Governments. These men are currently barred from accessing compensation for the horrific abuse they suffered and the Government has steadfastly stood in their way of justice. Last July, the Government was defeated by 84 votes to 44 on a Dáil motion which sought to allow victims of primary school sexual abuse to seek redress on the same basis as victims of residential institutional abuse. The Dáil instructed this Government, by a large majority, to change how this scheme operates, but in the arrogant approach that is the trademark of this Fine Gael Government, it ignored it. This, of course, is because Fine Gael knows better than everybody else.

This Dáil motion outlined how the State’s ex gratiaredress scheme, set up after Louise O’Keeffe won her European Court of Human Rights case in 2014, could be amended to include victims in cases who cannot prove a prior complaint. It would only cost about €15 million, which is not that much in the grand scheme of things. The prior complaint interpretation of the Louise O’Keeffe judgment is total nonsense and the Minister knows that, as did previous Ministers. It was designed by officials and lawyers to lock survivors out and keep the compensation bill down for the State, hoping that many of them would die and would not be able to access the compensation. It is a despicable approach to take with survivors of child sexual abuse.

The fight against the State which the men from Creagh Lane have had to put up has been shocking. They were subjected to the most horrendous sexual abuse as children in Creagh Lane national school in Limerick but denied redress due to barriers put in place by Fine Gael. Some of these men have shared their stories publicly. One, who was abused at the age of eight, said "School was about survival, I’d be looking at the teacher thinking "just stay away"". Another, who was abused at the age of six said "I was screaming and had to be tied into a buggy with a rope to be brought to school. The children never spoke about it, we just kept our heads down and our mouths shut". I know most of these lads personally, and many had never spoken about their abuse for years, with families and friends unaware what they went through. This Government has forced these men to protest outside the Dáil gates, to try to get their story highlighted in the media, to travel to Brussels to highlight their injustice in the European Parliament and to have a Dáil debate which the Government has ignored.

Louise O’Keeffe was dragged through the courts before she got justice and compensation, and it seems this Government is content to do the same to the remaining survivors who were locked out of the redress scheme. The Government’s handling of this situation has been shameful. It is clear it does not understand the hurt and stress it is causing to survivors. The abuse these men suffered as children ruined their childhoods and left a terrible scar on their lives. The Government needs to show compassion to these people. Can it please stop fighting these survivors of child sexual abuse in court, and provide them with the compensation that will allow them to get justice and move on with their lives?

On 7 July 2016, the then Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, told my colleague, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald, that payments had been made and that they would continue to be made under an ex gratiascheme. That is clearly not the case. The Minister told "RTÉ News" at the weekend that no one had been paid. Can he clarify this? It cannot be both and either payments have been made or they have not. Which is it?

See this speech in context