Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also support the call for further discussion and a debate about Judge Michael Reilly's very damning report. We see in this report the revisiting of some of the tragic themes from the story of the abuse of young people in Ireland. We hear about institutional defensiveness in terms of the State's response and its claims that these reports were not to be believed, the general non-belief and attitude of disbelief towards young people who make claims, the further victimisation of young people who have already been abused, which is something we have heard before, and, in particular, the targeting of children who are already vulnerable.

It seems very hard to credit that a State institution could be responsible for such neglect and such blatant cynicism about the welfare of young people, and that this could go on in the 21st century. It is hard to credit that a judge preparing a report did not believe in the integrity of the statistics about the provision of education and schooling in terms of teacher and prisoner attendances for schooling and, therefore, brought in his own experts to test that.

How can it be that we have a State institution where prison gangs are running riot, where a drug problem is rife and where there is not a basic duty of care or an attitude of care, more importantly, being shown towards young people? It can only be because there is a cultural lack of sympathy towards these children, these young people, because they are offenders. That is precisely when we must have high standards. It is precisely when the people in one's care are hard to love or make life difficult for themselves that we have to have high standards and that we should not be allowed to drop our standards in the way people are treated. It is important that we get a chance to ask some very hard questions in this House and I hope we can have a debate on this report.