Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

This is a positive step and a step in the right direction after many years of waiting. Like most public representatives, over the years I too have met and spoken with people from my constituency and other places who have been the victim of sexual abuse in schools. Sometimes it was an institution and sometimes it was not. The one thing that certainly strikes me is that the two were not separate. Sexual abuse and violent physical abuse were always together and that is something that needs to be taken into account here. The primary thing I see at the core of all this was power. It was about the person, the abuser, being in control and in power, and instilling fear not just into the person they were abusing but into everybody in the environment, so that it would remain a secret. That is something that needs to be acknowledged. That the investigation does not look at physical abuse is something that needs to be urgently re-examined.

It was interesting that the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, spoke about special schools and particularly vulnerable children. He spoke about when he was in school way back in the sixties. Obviously, there were children who were from a very poor background and the abuser would always pick on the children he felt were more vulnerable or whose families would not have the capacity to be able to stand up if they went home and told, whereas other families might have. The abusers were able to work that out. That has been one of the elements of all of this. Very often we find the abuser picked out on whom they would carry out their abuse and picked where they would carry it out. The whole scope of this needs to go right to the core of that and recognise that many of the people who have been so damaged by all of this may not have the capacity to be able to come forward in the same way as others. That is something that needs to be acknowledged. That is why it is so important this exercise goes to the very core of it and that everybody gets an opportunity not just to tell their story but to ensure their story is heard. These people have been the victims of terrible childhood trauma, which has had a lifelong impact on their lives. It is a positive step but the issue of redress and a whole lot of other issues need to be looked at here. I urge the Government to take this very seriously and move it forward with haste.

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