Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business that we discuss the Ryan report today, if at all possible. I listened to the Leader's reply on it, but I believe this is an urgent issue.

Senator Fitzgerald's point is crucial. This covers the whole of our community and follows logically from one step to another. The problem two weeks ago with the Ombudsman for Children was that she did not get some information from the HSE. The reason the executive did not give the information was that it was supposed to have come from Cloyne. The reason it did not was that the church authorities would not give all the information and sent their lawyers chasing the HSE. That is what we need to look at.

It is not just the churches, although I shall come back to that. There is the clergy and the churches, the State, politicians, the Judiciary and the media. All of us have questions to answer. We have provided an enormous carpet under which all of this was swept and hidden. We need to look at the common bonds. I want to put on record where I believe an enormous element of the problem lies - I know what my phone is going to do after this - namely, with the pervasive influence of those secret, shady, sinister, right-wing Catholic organisations that have been in the middle of this all my working life.