Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I support Senator Mullen's amendment. I welcome the Minister to the House. I listened very carefully to every word she had to say and am very impressed with what she has done and continues to do.

I have had two educational experiences in recent months, the first of which was when my local Church of Ireland asked me to commence the reading of the King James version of the Bible, which was published 400 years ago this year. I started reading and everybody did so afterwards. What I found interesting about this was not so much the Bible, although I should have read more of it, but the fact that for many hundreds of years, until 1611, church and state authorities tried to keep citizens in the dark over what was happening. They did so by removing information from citizens and by only allowing the Bible to be published in Latin. Therefore, they translated their own words in English. One may ask what this has to do with the motion. It seems to me there was a tradition for many years of church and state authorities keeping citizens uninformed regarding what was happening.

My second experience occurred some nights ago. Some of us had the opportunity to accept the hospitality of a Member of the Seanad and attend "Translations" in the Abbey Theatre. It was interesting to see a portrayal of the introduction of education into Ireland in 1833, and to see how this happened. From that year on, primary education has been very much in the hands of the church. We benefited to a very large extent from well-educated youth since then. The amendment attempts to introduce some balance in respect of the work done by the church over the years, not just in education but also in health. It is fair to say that when the hospitals were in the hands of the nuns, they were very effective and efficient by comparison with those that came later.

Power tends to corrupt. In spite of the wonderful work done by priests and nuns, some or, by the sound of it, quite a few, got so used to power and controlling through fear that they abused that power. Thus, the horrors we hear about in the Cloyne report were investigated and discovered.

The report on child sexual abuse makes for horrific reading. More shocking was the effort to protect the abusers from the law. It is very hard to understand the efforts made to keep the facts from the public eye. Therefore, I welcome this debate and the all-party motion that has been tabled, except for one part of it. I support the amendment to try to introduce balance into the debate.

Over the years, in business and other aspects of life, I have tried to find solutions to various challenges and to avoid confrontation. In trying to attempt to obtain solutions, I have tried to avoid using extreme language. I have a problem with the word "deplore". It may well be that many agree with the use of the word, which Senator Rónán Mullen asks to be removed from the motion. I accept everything in the motion except one short paragraph that states, "deplores the Vatican's intervention which contributed to the undermining of the child protection frameworks and guidelines of the Irish State and the Irish bishops". I am happy to support every aspect of the motion but believe the word "deplore" does not recognise the work done by various church bodies which I hope may result in full co-operation from those who have responsibilities. That said, I support the motion.

The first two paragraphs of the amendment state:

profoundly regrets the Vatican's intervention in 1997 which contributed to the undermining in the Cloyne diocese of the child protection frameworks and guidelines of the Irish Bishops;

also regrets the absence of satisfactory national guidelines in this State prior to 1999 concerning the reporting of knowledge or suspicion of child abuse, and regrets that Oireachtas Éireann [this is a reminder to us of our responsibility] has not yet enacted legislation to compel such reporting and to underpin inter-agency sharing of information;

The third paragraph notes that the 2001 motto priori from the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith reformed the Church's handling of abuse cases. It also notes that since, as evidenced by the approval of the United States bishops' "Essential Norms" document in December 2002, the Vatican has supported national church policies which require compliance with national civil laws on reporting these abuse allegations. It notes the commission of investigation's acknowledgement that the standards adopted by the church in Ireland are "high standards which, if fully implemented, would afford proper protection to children" and that "standards set by the State are less precise and more difficult to implement". I have a concern about the original motion because I believe it is not balanced and has not included that.

The last paragraph in the amendment "affirms the work of the national board for safeguarding children, established by the Irish Bishops' Conference, the Conference of Religious in Ireland and the Irish Missionary Union, and urges all the relevant religious authorities to co-operate fully with its work".

The reason I have quoted all of that is because there is a danger that the amendments are not always read.