Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

It might be helpful to outline for Senator Ulick Burke, Mr. Justice Ryan's position in his paper explaining why he does not wish to go down this road. He stated that a policy of identifying individuals may inadvertently have a number of negative implications for victims — which is not what anyone would wish — for several reasons. First, the policy of identifying and apportioning responsibility holds open the possibility of some abusers being exposed and might victimise those whose abusers are not exposed. Second, some victims might feel rejected and discriminated against by virtue of the fact that their abusers were not named while others were, despite the fact that the abuse perpetrated against the unnamed victims was far more heinous than that perpetrated against those who were named. Third, as the committee has the discretionary power to identify individuals, every person whose good name or reputation may be infringed by such identification has the right to the full range of constitutional protections, thus transforming each case before the investigation committee into a mini-trial.

That is Mr. Justice Ryan's position as set out in his paper on this issue from May 2004. He is attempting to protect the victims so one category is not treated differently to another and to avoid turning everything into a mini-trial. I respect that as well as the manner in which he is attempting to do his work efficiently.