Seanad debates

Wednesday, 8 October 2003

Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse: Statements (Resumed).

 

It was in that context that provision for children who could not be brought up within a normal family was made. The Catholic Church was determined that no secular organisation would have the dominant position in that area. It was the religious orders who rallied to the cry to provide residential institutional care to prevent any possibility of State involvement. One should read the rhetoric of the Roman Catholic Church during the mother and child scheme which happened in the same era. The determination to prevent poor, vulnerable Irish women from getting advice about childbirth and related matters from doctors who would not be under its thumb was a singular and central concern of the Roman Catholic Church. To pretend that these were good generous religious reaching out to help a State that could not fulfil this need itself is a complete travesty of history. In terms of the argument now that the culpability is equally shared, as far as I am concerned, the institution which demanded the right to run and monopolise these institutions was the institution which was most culpable.

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