Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this extraordinarily important issue. Lives have been destroyed. A national trauma has been unleashed and I join with her in paying tribute to Mark - I am thinking of him and his memory today - his brother David and, indeed, all the survivors and victims who came forward.

They have done the State an extraordinary service.

Let me be crystal clear just in case there is any misinterpretation in any manner or means about what the Deputy may or may not have heard me or any member of the Government say in recent weeks. I was making the point that those who preach certain things should practice in that way. The Deputy left out the next sentence but the next sentence is very important. The Government takes nothing off the table in terms of what can and should be done regarding this situation. I thank and commend the Minister for Education on the her work on this and the sensitive way she has handled this issue and worked with survivors. I pay tribute to her for that. The scoping inquiry is very clear about the responsibility and obligation on religious orders to quite frankly cough up here in terms of redress, and we should not repeat the mistakes of the past regarding this. I do not wish to speak about these matters in crude terms but anyone who thinks anyone is going to get off the hook here regarding their responsibility and obligation, moral or otherwise, is wrong. That is a misplaced view.

What we want to do is get the next steps right. The most important thing we have to do as a Government right now is make sure we put the correct mechanism in place in terms of the commission of investigation because I have heard what the survivors have said very clearly. They do not want to wait years and years again. This has destroyed their lives. As the Deputy rightly said, it has put their lives on hold. They want a process that is going to deliver for them. Sometimes we have done this well in this country and sometimes we have done it appallingly badly. We need to get that right. Redress will have to be a part of that but it is only a part of that because truth, justice and accountability constitute a major part as well.

The Deputy asked questions about why An Garda Síochána did not do this or that. I, and we in this House, do not direct An Garda Síochána but what we do know is that the Garda has been extraordinarily clear in terms of asking people to come forward and make complaints and statements. I understand that this has already happened in many cases and, therefore, this is a live Garda investigation into these matters as well.

The scale of this is shocking. The Deputy rightly said that religious orders knew; so did a lot of people in society. Religious orders knew but it seems to me that a hell of a lot of people must have known about this. The scale of this is so large that the idea that this was not known widely in society is not a credible proposition for anyone to put forward. Let me be clear to the Ceann Comhairle and the people of Ireland that we will act on this. We will have a full commission of investigation. We have decided that as a Government. We will do it in consultation in designing it in a way that works for survivors led by the Minister for Education. We will get this right. We will work across this House to get this right. We do not rule out legislation, legal change or any action that may be taken to make sure that, once and for all, people step up to their responsibilities that they have been evading and running from for decades.

See this speech in context