Maria Corrigan (Fianna Fail)

I join colleagues regarding the comments on the report. Words cannot describe the profound sadness and anger elicited by the contents of the report, the testament it bears to the broken lives of those left in its midst and the heroes who had the courage to speak to the inquiry. I have no doubt there are people who are too broken and debilitated to have been in a position to put their stories on the record for the inquiry and the report is equally significant for those people.

I join other colleagues in calling on the Leader to ask the Minister to come to the House as soon as possible. Given the experience which Members of the House bring to this area, any such debate should have several specific purposes. These include identifying what must now be done for these people to ensure that in moving on they have the best quality of life, identifying how we implement the recommendations, and, very importantly, keeping in mind that the abuses were perpetrated on a very vulnerable group of children.

There are still vulnerable groups of children today, some of whom are not in a position to ring hotlines or contact someone for the purposes of seeking help, whether these be children with disabilities, children in the care of the HSE or non-national children in the care of the HSE. We should also use this debate to identify what we can learn from the report and how we can apply this to ensure the best possible protection for those vulnerable groups of children now in our care.