Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I welcome the publication of the Murphy report, which at last shines a light into a dark corner of our recent history. The report examined the period between 1975 and 2004 and its recommendations refer to ongoing issues of which we must take account. I commend Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy and her commission on the report's excellence and clarity of language. I am glad we have the opportunity to debate the report's findings, which have already been subject to intense debate.

As the Minister of State noted, the first reaction of anyone reading the report is revulsion at the appalling abuses perpetrated against children by priests who were in a position of trust and moral authority. As with the Ryan report, I found it very distressing to read about the litany of brutal abuse. I pay particular tribute to the survivors of abuse for their bravery in coming forward to the commission. The public interventions from Andrew Madden, Marie Collins and Colm O'Gorman were the catalyst for exposing the abuses and preventing their recurrence. However, the commission acknowledged that many victims or survivors could not be identified.

All of us feel angry that for decades priests were allowed to perpetrate their appalling crimes with impunity. Other speakers have referred to the small proportion of abusers who were convicted. At best, the church turned a blind eye to their activities and at worst it facilitated them over several decades. We should condemn the failure of both church and State authorities to deal adequately with the horrific sexual abuses against children.

I will speak briefly about the findings of the report before addressing the lessons we have learned for the future. The number 46 is referred to frequently because that is the figure for the sample of priests investigated by the commission. However, the commission found that complaints were made against a total of 183 priests in the Dublin diocese. To the commission's knowledge, complaints against the aforementioned 46 priests were made by approximately 320 children but as it could not be sure that it had information on all cases of abuse even that limited sample of priests may have abused other children. The chapter of the report dealing with the convicted serial sex abuser, William Carney, notes that while the commission knows about 32 complaints, there is clear evidence of additional cases. These are shocking figures. One priest admitted to abusing more than 100 children and another accepted that he had committed abuse on a fortnightly basis over a period of 25 years.

It is no wonder this volume of child sexual abuse by clergy was described by a church source as a tsunami of abuse and an earthquake hidden from view beneath the surface. However, the commission took care to point out that the abuse was not hidden from those in the know within the church. Sexual abuse allegations against clerics were known about for several decades before the church began to take appropriate action. The culture of cover up only began to break down when brave individuals began to come forward in the mid-1990s. The report set out a brief history of sexual abuse in the church. Sexual abuse against children has been a delict under canon law since time immemorial and a 2,000 year record of biblical, papal and Holy See statements reveals knowledge of clerical child sex abuse. In Ireland, Archbishop McQuaid dealt with allegations of child sex abuse against priests in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1987, the Archdiocese of Dublin took out insurance cover on compensation for claims even though it was officially in denial. It was not until 1995 that the archdiocese provided the names of priests against whom allegations were made by the Garda and it only established its child protection service in 2003. All the archbishops who served during the period covered by the report knew of the existence of complaints, as did many auxiliary bishops, officials and priests. The vast majority simply chose to turn a blind eye.

Key among the report's findings is the culture of secrecy that prevailed within the Catholic church and its obsessive concern with avoiding scandal. The report states: "Complainants were often met with denial, arrogance and cover-up and with incompetence and incomprehension in some cases". This response caused many more children to be abused, in some cases over several decades, not only in Ireland but also as far afield as Japan and Africa.

We need to make progress on three areas in particular if we are to ensure this abuse never happens again in any institution of State or church. As legislators, we need to identify and address gaps in the child protection legislation and the Constitution. The Minister described the legislative progress being made to ensure that soft information about suspicions of child abuse can be shared. However, he did not address the need to legislate for the mandatory reporting of child sex abuse. He referred to the offence created by the Criminal Justice Act 2006, section 176 of which provides that it is an offence to recklessly endanger a child by causing or permitting him or her to be left in a situation which creates a substantial risk of serious harm or sexual abuse. That is an important defence which I very much welcome but it relates only to risk subsequent to 2006. It is not aimed at non-disclosure where there is no longer a risk. There is a gap in our law where misprision of felony was abolished and the offence under the Offences against the State (Amendment) Act 1998, section 9 of which covers the withholding of information on serious offences, does not cover offences causing sexual injury. As a result, we are in the rather bizarre situation where it is an offence under emergency legislation for a teacher, for example, to fail to report to a garda his or her belief a child has been seriously assaulted in the home but it is not an offence for him or her to fail to report a suspicion that a child is being sexually abused. We need to review this. There does not seem to be a mechanism for prosecuting those whose turning of a blind eye or negligence caused the continuation of abuse of so many children.

We need to enshrine children's rights in the Constitution from which they are notably absent. We need to ensure the HSE improves its record-keeping procedures. Chapter 6 of the report is particularly critical of the way in which it kept its files by reference to the name of the complainant rather than that of the abuser, thereby making it impossible to cross-reference and ensure it knew how many abusers there were. The Minister of State referred to the need to fill 270 social work posts to ensure implementation of HSE guidelines and child protection principles. That is very important. I am glad to see his commitment to this and promise of legislative backing for the Children First guidelines. We need to see this happen.

As citizens, we must consider the need for accountability and the taking of responsibility. Members of the Catholic church must consider how the culture of secrecy and cover-up was allowed to develop. There may be issues of celibacy connected with women priests but that is a matter for church members. It is valid for us, as legislators, to consider the role of persons in authority in the church who also have important roles in civic structures. Where bishops, for example, have a significant role to play in the secular and civic institutions of the State, as patrons of national schools, politicians are entitled to say they should resign where they have been found guilty of inexcusable behaviour, in the cover-up of the activities of priests who abused, thereby facilitating the continuation of the abuse.

I note the commission's reference to the very prominent role of the church in Irish life. In paragraph 1.90 it states it may be that the very prominent role that the church has played in Irish life is the very reason abuses by a minority of its members were allowed to go unchecked. A culture of deference persisted because of the prominent role the church played. We now see the remnants of this. The priests who were named as abusers filled roles that crossed between the church and the civic authorities. Two of those named as abusers - Ivan Payne being one of the most heinous - were chaplains at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin. The bishops who were implicated by having known of and dealt badly with the abuse are patrons of national schools, 477 of which are in the archdiocese of Dublin.

We need to consider the bigger role the Catholic Church has played and continues to play in our civic institutions and need to move away from a situation where a church which operated above the civil law and its own Canon Law in which child sex abuse was always a crime retains its prominent and privileged role. As a secular state and with the Oireachtas as the parliamentary system in a democratic republic, we need to take responsibility for our civic institutions, particularly schools and hospitals. There is an enormous problem within the national school system. Over 3,000 of our 3,300 national schools are run by the Catholic church, although they are State-funded. Senator Norris spoke about the exemption granted in the equality legislation which enables schools to discriminate on the basis of preserving their ethos. It also allows schools to discriminate on the basis of religion when they accept children as pupils, which is another problem.

At a conference on Catholic primary education in contemporary Ireland held last May Bishop Donal Murray noted:

In the absence of a local alternative, parents may have no choice but to send their children to a Catholic school. This can cause difficulties for them and indeed for the school ... If the family find the Catholic ethos of the school unacceptable, however, there does not seem to be any obvious solution ... If withdrawal from religious instruction is not enough, then it seems that one would have to acknowledge that this kind of school is simply not suitable for that family.

Bishop Murray recognised and acknowledged that parents who did not wish their child to be brought up in the Catholic faith would have no alternative but to send their child to that Catholic school and that the child would be exposed to religious instruction throughout the school day. His admission that this means that "this kind of school is simply not suitable for that family" is extraordinary, yet it represents the truth that in this so-called republic we cannot offer children what the Constitution states we must offer them, the right to be educated in a way that is not in violation of the parents' conscience and lawful preference. Article 44 enshrines the right of the child to attend a State-funded school without receiving religious instruction. We need to examine this much bigger issue because it relates to the culture of deference that has persisted for so long in which the Catholic church has held a privileged position in Irish society. From this position its members have operated with arrogance and contempt for the laws of the State and enabled known abusers in many cases to continue abusing, causing horrific damage to so many children for so long.

I welcome the Minister of State with special responsibility for children who has just come into the House.

The final chapter of the report makes for especially distressing reading. It describes the appalling impact the abuse had on the lives of so many of the children involved and their families. Of Marie Collins, one of the bravest of the victims, who came forward in a very lonely campaign to expose levels of abuse, it states: "After years spent trying to get her Church to deal openly and truthfully with the challenge posed to it by the scandal of child sexual abuse she has concluded that within the institutional Church there has been no change of heart, only a change of strategy". Listening to bishops trying to cover and defend their positions and to the Taoiseach in refusing to condemn the contempt with which the Vatican treated the commission, one is struck by Marie Collins' words. There may not have been a change of heart. I very much hope there has and that our State structures have changed from the culture of turning a blind eye and of blind obedience and loyalty to a church that was and is often rigid and unforgiving to those who transgressed its doctrines such as persons who used contraception, gay people and women who had abortions, yet took a very different approach to its own members who for so long were guilty of these most heinous crimes against children.