Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senators for their remarks on this excellent report. It deals with a disturbing and emotive subject and I thank Senators for the thoughtfulness of their contributions which not only dealt with the report's findings and their implications, as the last speaker stated, but also made clear their revulsion at what the report had revealed. Above all, the House has paid tribute to the courage of the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse in their fight for justice and outstanding contribution to the work of the commission.

It is right that we have placed emphasis on the State's response, but the primary focus of the report is on the failings of the church authorities, as Senators have recognised. No Government in a democracy can or should prescribe how a church should be run. However, we can make sure all institutions in the State are subject to its laws. I have no doubt that Senators are determined that is the case.

I note Senator Healy Eames questioned the status of the report. It is well known that the commission was set up under statute to establish and report on the factual position and make findings. The report indicates that, because facts came to the attention of the commission after its finalisation, a supplemental report might be published, something of which we will have to take cognisance.

The Senator also raised the issue of the primacy of law in the State and referred to criminal and civil law being superior to Canon Law, which is the case. All persons in Ireland, without exception, are subject to the law of the land and all activities, criminal or otherwise, are subject to the laws we lay down. As I said when I launched the report, anyone, no matter who he or she is and whether he or she wears a collar, who commits a crime is subject to the criminal law.

The Vatican response to the request received from the commission of investigation conveyed the impression that it was unwilling to co-operate with the inquiry, which is unfortunate. With regard to the papal nuncio, I understand the letter he received from the commission earlier this year included an invitation to submit any observations he wished to make on certain extracts from the draft report. While the fact that he chose not to do so did not impact on the commission's work, it is unfortunate that his failure to reply left the distinct impression that there was a lack of support for its work.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Martin, invited the papal nuncio to meet him yesterday to discuss the commission's report. This followed a meeting between the Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and the papal nuncio last week at his request. In the course of the meeting yesterday the Minister emphasised the deep concern of the Government and the wide public feeling of upset at the unacceptable way in which the abuse of children had been handled by the church authorities. The Minister asked for the full co-operation of the Holy See in investigations, including the continuing investigations in Dublin and Cloyne.

The papal nuncio said the Holy See was also shocked and appalled at the contents of the report and that it was taking it very seriously. It was aware of the outrage generated in Ireland by the report. The seriousness with which it was being viewed was reflected in the request from the Pope to Cardinal Brady and Archbishop Martin to meet him in Rome next Friday. I welcome these comments from the papal nuncio and the initiative of the Vatican in convening the meeting on Friday. It is essential that the church authorities at all levels demonstrate a firm resolve and capacity to ensure that the highest standards of child protection are applied, and that there is unambiguous acceptance of the responsibility of the civil authorities to ensure that the rights of children are vindicated and that those who commit offences are held to account whatever their status. There are distinct but equal responsibilities on institutions of church and State to ensure that vulnerable children are placed first in our approach and actions.

While there has been a fundamental change in recent years in the way this issue is dealt with in our society, as I have said in the other House there are no grounds for complacency. It is the duty of Government to ensure that all institutions in the State are subject to the law of the State without exception, above all to the laws which protect children. The Government will do whatever is necessary to ensure that the old ways of responding to allegations and evidence of child sexual abuse will never return, and the ways we now handle them will be continually updated in the light of developing best practice.

The Garda Commissioner has expressed his sorrow that, as the commission has found, in some cases, because of acts or omissions, individuals who sought assistance did not always receive the level of response or protection which any citizen in trouble is entitled to expect from the Garda Síochána. He has stressed that protecting vulnerable children must always be a priority for the Garda Síochána and that the force would continue to work with the HSE and other agencies to ensure children's safety and was committed to ensuring that the confidence in, and effectiveness of, its investigation methods was such that abusers could not draw a cloak of fear and mistrust around their crimes.

The report acknowledges the expertise and ongoing work of the Garda domestic violence and sexual assault investigation unit. The work of this unit is now supplemented by a series of initiatives and measures designed to enhance its investigative ability and provide specialist officers countrywide with the skills required to deal with the victims of sexual offences. These measures include the establishment of a training facility to train senior investigating officers, incident room managers and detectives; training and appointing specialist child interviewers throughout the country; establishing and rolling out dedicated child interview suites in each region; and developing and implementing a youth and children strategy for the period from 2009 to 2011. These initiatives are designed to bring the Garda Síochána into line with best international practice. The current Garda approach to child sexual abuse cases is designed to deal sensitively with victims and apply the best investigative methods to secure a just outcome in the courts.

The investigation unit undertook a substantial investigation in 2002, following the RTE "Cardinal Secrets" programme. The commission has acknowledged that this investigation was effective, co-ordinated and comprehensive. It resulted in the submission of several files to the DPP and following his direction a number of people have appeared before the courts charged with serious offences. Some of these cases are still ongoing.

The victims are entitled to expect that the issue of criminal liability on the part of anyone in authority - either church or State - in the handling of these cases will be pursued fully and rigorously. I assure the House that will happen. Assistant commissioner O'Mahony and his team will have the full investigative powers of the Garda Síochána in examining the report's findings relating to the handling of complaints and investigations by both church and State at the Commissioner's request. The focus of the examination will be to establish whether the failing identified in the report amounted to criminal behaviour. They will pursue their inquiries, without fear or favour, wherever they lead.

There was reference to the fact that, while the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act 1998 introduced an offence of withholding information which might be of assistance in preventing the commission of a serious offence or securing a prosecution, it excludes an offence of a sexual nature from this provision. This matter was discussed when the Bill was being considered by the Oireachtas. The view taken then was that if offences of a sexual nature were not excluded in this way, it could lead to the introduction of mandatory reporting in sex abuse cases. It would not be appropriate to deal with such a complex issue as mandatory reporting in an offences against the State Bill. The Government does not propose to introduce any form of mandatory reporting at this time. International evidence suggests that mandatory reporting serves only to swamp child protection systems with high volumes of reports, often resulting in no commensurate increase in substantiated cases.

Recent reviews of the Children First guidelines have found them to be robust and appropriate. We now need to focus on having the guidelines implemented on a consistent basis. The implementation plan drawn up following the publication of the Ryan report states that the Government will draft legislation to impose a duty to comply with the Children First guidelines on all staff employed by the State and all staff employed in agencies in receipt of funding from the Exchequer. Legislation will also be drafted to provide for sharing of information and co-operation between relevant services in the best interests of children.

The Commission's report and a number of Senators expressed concern about the statutory powers of the HSE to deal with child sexual abuse by non-family members. The Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs will consult further with the Office of the Attorney General to seek clarity on this issue. However, in the wake of the publication of the Ferns report in 2005, legal advice was sought from the then Attorney General regarding the powers of health boards, or the HSE as it now is, to investigate and deal with incidents of child abuse perpetrated outside the family. The then Attorney General was not of the view that the HSE's powers under section 3 of the Child Care Act 1991 are limited to cases of intra-family abuse. The HSE has stated that it responds to all allegations of child sexual abuse regardless of the circumstances of the allegation.

Earlier this year the Government requested the commission of investigation to extend its work to deal with the diocese of Cloyne because of concerns which had arisen regarding that diocese. The Government believes the work of the Commission on the archdiocese of Dublin and its forthcoming report on the diocese of Cloyne will serve the primary purpose of establishing what happened, so that lessons can be learned and remedies introduced. The Department of Education and Science is examining school patronage in general. This is a wide-ranging review. This is in addition to the Department's consideration of new, developing areas, new patronage for schools and international experience in this area generally.

Reference has been made to the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children. As Senators will be aware, the committee has presented two interim reports and has over recent months concentrated its deliberations on family law issues. It has a draft final report under consideration and its deadline for reporting back to the Oireachtas is in a week's time, on 16 December.

Some of the contributions also referred to the exemption in the Employment Equality Acts to religious institutions and educational or medical institutions under their control. Such an institution can seek to invoke this exemption only if an employee or potential employee would undermine or crucially affect the values and ethos of that religious institution. There is to date no case law where an employee or potential employee has challenged the religious exemption or the manner in which a religious institution has determined that its ethos or values have been undermined. It would be open to an employee or potential employee to seek to show that the action taken by the institution was unreasonable or that it was disproportionate to consider that his or her employment was undermining the religious ethos of the institution. The European Commission raised some queries with regard to the protection against discrimination based on religious grounds. Their queries were answered by Ireland and accepted by the Commission in May 2008.

The Government has a clear duty to do all it can to ensure that the abuse so vividly and sickeningly laid bare in the report does not happen in the future and, where it does, that it is responded to appropriately. Consequently, notwithstanding the positive findings of the commission on current Garda practices, I have requested the Garda Inspectorate as part of its work programme to carry out a review of Garda arrangements for dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse. Furthermore, while the Ryan report dealt specifically with abuse of children within residential institutions, the Government has asked the Minister with responsibility for Children and Youth Affairs to consider the commission's report with a view to establishing what actions are necessary in addition to the 99 points contained in the Ryan report implementation plan. These are just two examples of the action being taken and in addition to that action the Government will not hesitate to take any further action necessary.

I again thank the Senators for their remarks on this report. I am glad to say that it has been well ventilated in this House. We look forward to receiving the further reports from the commission.