Brendan Ryan (Labour)

In the late 1980s and a number of times since then, I quoted in this House what I heard a senior Garda officer in Cork say about child abuse. He said that the Garda Síochána knows that the vast majority of abuse is perpetrated by homosexuals. He was not speaking in a private capacity. He also said that "we had to be careful because a huge part of the campaign was being run by people who are setting out to undermine the sanctity of the family in Ireland". It is not my style to mention names in the House. On each occasion I assumed that somebody would ask me who the person was and that an investigation would take place. I was never asked who said it. We had a culture of silence.

A series of questions must be asked. Did a private institution attempt to subvert the law of the land by swearing its members to silence? If it did, it is a criminal offence, a breach of the rights of citizens and an interference with the sovereignty of the State. If people did this, they should be held to account. Is such an institution fit to be the manager of most of our schools? This is a valid question in light of its apparently unclear allegiance to the law of the land when the interests of the institution are apparently threatened. I ask these questions as a practising Catholic having to live battered and bruised with what was much worse than incompetence.

Are the current procedures for dealing with matters in schools acceptable? Why is it taking so long to initiate an inquiry in Dublin? Will the Church open its archives for the past 100 years so we can find out whether child abuse is something new or if it existed for 100 years but, because of the way the world was organised, was ignored? Like Senator O'Toole, I am not sure whether we should discuss this matter now or stay calm about it.

I wish to mention two other matters. When the priest Senator O'Toole mentioned was banished, I took up the issue in correspondence columns and received a metaphorical belt of the crozier from one of the two bishops named in the report. I was told that I was exaggerating and making things up and that I should stick to my lay activities and leave these matters to my betters. Second, there are dioceses in this country where the Stay Safe programme was not permitted. One of them is not far from where I live. Any bishop who bans the Stay Safe programme has a serious question to answer about his fitness to be in that position or to be in a position of leadership in society.