Maurice Hayes (Independent)

I too congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan, on his handling of the sequence of events which has been compassionate, sure-footed and responsible. I start from a position where I would not have had a secondary education had it not been for the willingness of members of the De la Salle order to dedicate their lives to teaching me for nothing. I am eternally grateful to them for that.

Enough has been said about the individual acts of evil outlined in the report. The cardinal error that the church hierarchy was more concerned with protecting the institution than in protecting the child is similar to Lord Denning's "appalling vista" translated into Canon Law. Since the events at the Kincora Boys' Home in the mid-1980s dioceses in Northern Ireland have been required to follow a series of safeguards, which seem to have worked reasonably well. Since some of those dioceses straddle the Border it seems odd that they did not they did not translate that usage. I am glad the report gives vindication to Dr. McGinnity, who was shamefully treated at the time and since for his effort at whistleblowing.

I will now turn to the report and focus on what we should do in future. There should be mandatory reporting by professionals when they come across clear instances of child abuse. The Catholic Church authorities in Northern Ireland found it necessary and advisable to introduce the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools, which has the standing of an education board. It is a joint effort between it and the Department of Education for Northern Ireland. It was introduced to provide management to ensure that parish priests and other clerical managers faced up to unpleasant tasks necessary to secure compliance and discipline. It supplies training in this regard. We should consider broadening and strengthening the school management and training for school boards of management. It gives a great opportunity to introduce the voice of women and mothers.

We need to allocate resources to screening people for employment in these fields. This matter goes beyond teaching, as children need to be protected in a variety of areas. This matter is very low on the list of police priorities in Northern Ireland and I am sure it is low on the list of Garda priorities, which means it needs to be provided with the resources in this regard. There should be an exchange of information with Northern Ireland, incorporating a common database and perhaps this should also include Great Britain. The capacity for people to slip across the Border and take various jobs makes this imperative.

It is comparatively easy to ask the Garda to deal with recorded events. It is much more difficult when they are just suspicions, making it very easy to do an injustice to people. In many cases notes of various rumours are filed separately and never come together. There needs to be a procedure for doing this in a responsible way, which does not turn the matter into a witch-hunt. The Minister of State should talk to people in the North who have developed many of these procedures and faced up to these problems. The worst thing we could do would be to create a situation in which nobody wants to work with young people thus frightening off all those wonderful people who train footballers and hurlers, teach swimming, and help children as youth leaders, scout leaders, etc. It would be damaging in the long run to frighten people away from such activity. This morning I heard of an interesting conference taking in place in Belfast, which addresses protecting children from cyber crime, in which people access them on the Internet. This is a new field which merits close consideration.

I applaud the decision to hold an inquiry into events in the Dublin archdiocese. I would not favour digging holes in every other diocese in the country which could go on forever. Where victimhood is established the Minister of State should ensure that dioceses, as well as having procedures for dealing with the future, have a procedure for allowing those hurt or damaged in the past to receive apologies and tell their stories.

The Minister of State should turn his mind to a broader issue, which may be unfashionable. Ultimately, what do we do with paedophiles in our society after they come out of prison? Sadly I have seen even in my own community that the community wants to do precisely what we have criticised the bishops for having done with errant priests, that is, it wants to send them somewhere else. Each community will need to come to terms with this issue. As professional knowledge of paedophiles develops, we may establish ranges of risk. Some people may need to be kept away forever and others may need to be registered and monitored. I will leave this matter with the Minister of State as a question that will arise and which compassion also requires us to address.

We should congratulate the judge on his report. I congratulate Bishop Walsh, the acting bishop of Ferns, and Colm O'Gorman and all those who had the courage to come forward. While some people are worried about the media, if it had not been for the "Suing the Pope" programme, we would not be discussing this matter at all. I wish the Minister of State well in his further consideration of these matters.