Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The inclusion of day schools has been discussed a number of times. The Residential Institutions Redress Board was established as an alternative mechanism to the courts to allow people to get redress. These were people who were former residents of institutions. The key point is that the State had a significant supervisory or regulatory responsibility. The same is not true of day schools. The children who were in institutions were separated from their parents and did not have the care and protection that families would usually enjoy. They were in the care of those institutions 24 hours per day, seven days per week. The State was responsible for putting them there and the institution was responsible for caring for them. However, the statutory duty was not met. The same cannot be said of the day cases. The commission deals with day school cases and has indicated that it intends to interview each of the day school applicants. It can then make recommendations on the issue of the day school cases should it so wish.

Vaccine trials will not be dealt with by the commission because the courts have already ruled that the investigation of these children under the commission legislation is ultra vires and cannot, therefore, be allowed to continue. It is primarily a matter for the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children. I understand procedures are being put in place to revoke the statutory instrument which provided for the additional function of investigating the vaccine trials as part of the task of the commission in line with the judgment of the courts. The courts have decided that because vaccine trials do not comply with the description of abuse under the legislation they will not qualify for redress.