Donie Cassidy (Fianna Fail)

Senators Fitzgerald, O'Toole, McCarthy, Keaveney, Cannon, Harris, Norris, Hanafin, Hannigan, Corrigan, Twomey, Ormonde, Mullen, Ó Murchú, Bradford, Mary White, Coghlan, Callely and Leyden all expressed their shock and horror. I have been a Member of this House for a long time and have never seen one issue dominate the entire Order of Business. The seriousness with which colleagues have treated this matter has been unprecedented to my knowledge. Colleagues have given various responses to the Ryan report on the abuse of children, their suffering, horror, torture and to the hard work and endeavour by Mr. Justice Ryan and his team over ten years to bring this report to this point, to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, who commissioned the report and the former Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, who apologised for the scandalous behaviour that took place. Senator Fitzgerald pointed out the 161 settings and Senator Mary White said that there are 5,300 young people in institutional care at present-----