Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The confidential committee has already heard 1,060 witnesses. It has heard everyone who seeks to give his or her story. Everyone who wishes to go before the investigation committee is interviewed and a decision is then taken as to whether he or she goes to a full hearing. The way in which that decision will be taken will be to ensure the commission can get as full a picture as possible of all the complaints, circumstances and timescale being examined. As we are looking at a 30 year timescale, it is important for the commission to get a flavour of each of those three decades, rather than taking all from one and none from another. This is why Mr. Justice Ryan deliberately avoided imposing selection criteria for cases because it may be different for each individual institution, times or the circumstances being examined.

In the majority of cases, all complainants will get a full hearing. There are five homes where the number of complainants is too large to enable the commission to hear them all to collate the information for a report. These are the boys' industrial schools, Fairyhouse, Upton, Letterfrack and Artane and Dangan, a boys' reformatory school. Every witness in every school the commission investigates will be heard, except those five. The majority of people will go to full hearing. The idea is that the investigation committee's legal team will be able to give a full picture of life in those institutions over the 30 years. By first interviewing the people affected, the team will be able to determine if there is duplication of evidence or if a new story is emerging that may be valuable to be heard. It is important the team has the flexibility to do this. If the team finds, even after inviting people to a full hearing, that it still does not have as broad a picture as needed, then more people can be invited to the committee. It is not too strict a system but allows the flexibility for the team to work. Fixed criteria are not wanted as there may be differences between individual institutions.

Amendment No. 6 proposes the holding in public of meetings and joint hearings which can be attended by survivors, their representatives, respondents and their representatives. In both cases the investigation committee will be entitled to work in this way whenever it considers it appropriate. Again, tying it down to agreed criteria would limit the committee's discretion. The committee is the only one to decide whether to have a hearing in public, based on the information it has on the content and purpose of the hearing. Like a tribunal of inquiry, it will hear evidence on oath from witnesses who have relevant testimony to give and collect documentary material which it can analyse. Only then, will it be able to assess the material and come to conclusions. This can only be done according as the hearing process progresses. It will be different for individual institutions.

Regarding amendment No. 8, section 7 is intended to allow the investigation committee to call before it people whose accounts it considers will provide it with the greatest possibility of arriving at the truth of what occurred. It is important the commission has appropriate discretion in carrying out its functions. There are likely to be complainants whose allegations are incapable of leading to a finding of abuse. We need the commission to work on the evidence to allow it to find out the truth of what happened. Requiring the investigation committee to agree in advance with representative groups the circumstances in which this would arise would be an impossible task and would hamper its work and independence. It is important to allow the commission the flexibility to obtain as full a picture as possible of what took place over many years so it can produce a report that is valuable to society.