Averil Power (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for his address to the House and for being here for the debate. I shall start where he finished and before dealing with the technicalities of the Bill by offering my sincere sympathy to the victims of residential child abuse. As he said, many of the victims are in the Visitors Gallery. Earlier I met Christine Buckley on my way into the Chamber. To everybody in the country, she is testament to the bravery and dignity of victims who were subjected to unspeakable horrors. As the Minister rightly pointed out, it was done not just through the religious orders but with the acquiescence of the State and often with the direct knowledge of the State. The victims have travelled an incredibly long journey to get to where we are today both with the redress board and to finally introduce the statutory fund and other measures. I was quite young when I first heard Christine Buckley's interview on "The Late Late Show" on Goldenbridge and I could not believe that something like that had been done to children in this country. It is hard to speak on the subject and debate technicalities when the reality of personal stories is so evident. The abuse that children suffered will cast a scar long after this debate into the future. Member of this House will look back on this abuse as a dark and horrible part of our history. As legislators, the least we can do is to co-operate on the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Bill to ensure we get it right for the people relying on us.

In that context I welcome the Bill, however we believe it is flawed in some respects and I will go into greater detail on that on Committee Stage. We are concerned that it is too restrictive. It is unfair to restrict it to people who received awards from the Residential Institutions Redress Board or an equivalent court settlement and not allow other groups to be eligible for redress. I want to read an e-mail from a survivor who articulates the restrictiveness of the provisions. He states that eligibility to the fund is being confined to those who received an award from the redress board or who have received awards pursuant to court action and who otherwise would have received awards from the board. However, this definition will exclude many of those who have suffered most from institutional abuse. There is strong evidence of high levels of abuse among people who are homeless, in places of detention and in mental health services who were therefore not in a position to make claims. Therefore, people who have not come to terms with their abuse have not heard of the redress initiative or are so damaged that they did not have the financial or psychological resources to attend will be unable to receive assistance from the fund. In other words, some of those who have suffered the most and are most in need of help will be unable to benefit from a scheme designed to help survivors because of Government legislation. The State will have failed them not once but twice.

I hope the Minister will reconsider the amendments we tabled in the Dáil and that I will retable on Committee Stage. It is unfair and unnecessary in the greater scheme of things to exclude those who have suffered most.

One of the other gaping gaps in the Bill is to provide for the former residents of the Magdalene laundries and Bethany Home. I appreciate that work is ongoing on that issue and that Senator Martin McAleese is chairing the interdepartmental committee. As we all know from our time in the House, Senator McAleese is a man of extraordinary integrity. I have no doubt that victims will get a good hearing from him. I hope his report will bring justice to the victims of the Magdalene laundries and this legislation may need to be revisited in that context later.

On the broader issues of child protection, I welcome the Government's commitment to put the Children First guidelines on a statutory basis. It is important to ensure there is consistency across the country on how the guidelines are implemented. It is vital that all of the recommendations of the Ryan report are implemented. The Minister stated that 99 recommendations have been implemented to date but will he update the House on the expected implementation date for the remaining recommendations? The scale of failure identified in both the Ryan and Murphy reports means that the least we can is implement their recommendations.

It is welcome that the referendum on children's rights will be held by the end of this year. I hope this is still on target. It will address the weaknesses identified in cases such as the Baby Anne case among others. All of the legislation relating to children refers to the child's interest being first and paramount, which is a key aspect of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but the reality is that does not seem to be our constitutional position. I hope we can agree a wording on the referendum. I know the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children has done a lot of work and that all parties will get out and campaign hard to address it.

I now wish to raise an issue with the Minister which is in his area of responsibility, namely, the vetting of existing teachers. Yesterday the Teaching Council appeared before the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection. While all new teachers are being vetted, the Teaching Council stated that it was still the case that 42,000 existing registered teachers have not been vetted. The reason is twofold. There is an issue with the Garda vetting unit but more importantly from its point of view, the Teaching Council is incapable of processing more vetting applications through the Teaching Council because of lack of resources. Given that the Teaching Council is self-financing and teachers pay their subscriptions to the council, I understand that it is consequence of the staffing embargo and the overall employment control framework, but there must be flexibility to apply commonsense. I know that is not just an issue for the Minister for Education and Skills but for his Cabinet colleagues. I appreciate that vetting is only one part of the solution for child protection, and that it will only pick up prosecutions or convictions. We have not yet legislated, but I hope it will soon happen, for soft information. I appreciate that it is only one aspect and that we need to put other safeguards in place. It is the least we can do. It gives some reassurance to parents that if somebody has a prosecution or a conviction, we will know and ensure the person is not in a classroom with children. We must address the issues that are preventing the Teaching Council from vetting teaching staff and I hope the Minister will ensure these issues will be addressed.

I am committed to ensuring the religious orders step up to the plate. I am angry. The Minister expressed his disappointment that the religious orders have not stepped up to the plate and provided the 50% contribution that they should.