Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I support the comments of Senators Fitzgerald and O'Toole regarding the Murphy report. It is a shame we are not debating the report today when the rest of the country is but I am glad it will be debated in the House next Friday. The report makes for distressing reading. It has exposed the appalling inadequacy of responses to horrific rape and sexual abuse of children by both church and State authorities. I agree with Senator Fitzgerald that our debate should focus on the actions that need to be taken. As politicians, we need to examine legislation to ensure soft information on child sex abuse can be shared and to ensure mandatory reporting of suspicions of sex abuse. We have dodged that for a long time. The law on misprison of a felony has been amended in such a way that it seems bishops responsible for allowing and facilitating abuse to continue over many years and for children's lives to be destroyed in the process will not be capable of being prosecuted for any crime and that is a failing of ours, as legislators.

However, I take issue with Senator O'Toole because it is proper and acceptable when bishops have such an enormous role in the secular and civic institutions of the State for politicians to say whether they should resign where they have been found guilty of inexcusable behaviour in the cover up of priests who abused and continued to abuse. The language of cover-up and the language of mental reservation is the language of lying and deceit by any other name. We are entitled to call for resignations, particularly when bishops are still patrons in schools and still responsible in many cases for the running of hospitals, as pointed out by Senator O'Toole. Let us not forget that two chaplains of hospitals were named in the report as having been directly involved in abuse. There are children of all religions and none in Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin. It is absolutely inexcusable that we allow children of any religion to be victimised in this way.

We must also focus on the role of papal nuncio. I go further than Senator O'Toole in saying that it is time for the Minister, who has expressed doubts about the behaviour of the papal nuncio in treating the commission with contempt, to call in the papal nuncio and expel him if he cannot give a reason for the contempt with which he treated the commission's call for information. The bishops must wake up and smell the coffee. This is not a case of looking for heads on the plate, it is about seeking accountability and acceptance of responsibility for heinous crimes against children committed for many decades. It is not good enough that the bishops defend their own; they have missed the point. This is particularly true when they are so involved in secular society and when there are reports this week, as the Dáil is about to debate the Civil Partnership Bill, that the Catholic Church is lobbying against the legislation. That is inexcusable behaviour from a religious institution.