Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State's putting those points on the record. I join him in encouraging anybody who was the victim of sexual abuse, in a historical context or otherwise, in the Probation Service to come forward. A probation officer has a sense of huge trust. The reports which came to me involved not the person themselves being the subject of probation but actually a family member. The threat was used that if this sexual abuse were disclosed, that family member - I say "family member"; it was another child - would be subjected to the Probation Service and the power it has. Probation officers occupy an incredibly important position in society and do incredible work. Like all those trusted important positions, however, people who are willing to commit abuse against children use those positions.

We have learned so much in the past that victims should not have to fight every inch. I will say at this very early stage, and it would appear that there are very small numbers, that we should try to look for a mechanism that would avoid a legal route being the only route to justice. I am sure more seasoned Deputies - I see, I think, the longest-serving Member of the House here, Deputy Bernard Durkan - although I think there is a dispute between him and Deputy Richard Bruton in that regard - have seen more times than anybody else how victims are forced to use the legal process as the only way they can secure justice.

Surely we can step back from this and put in place a process. The option of having a criminal investigation is not open when the person is deceased. It is right that people ask what the State knew, when it knew it and if it should have acted. Everything may have been above board but it is right that people ask those questions. I ask again that the files be reviewed and a mechanism put in place to help victims who have been through an immense torture.

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