Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As a country, we have failed in the area of child protection and we have failed the victims of child abuse. Unfortunately, we continue to fail them. Ms Louise O'Keeffe is an extraordinary woman. She took the State to the High Court and failed and she took the State to the Supreme Court and failed, despite massive pressure being brought to bear on her that she would be destroyed financially because all legal costs would be sought by the State. She then took the State to the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, and won. We owe her a huge debt. The ECHR said that the State should have been aware of the risk of child abuse in schools and that it was obliged to protect the children. A total of 210 other people did not get as far as the ECHR. When Ms Louise O'Keeffe failed in both the High Court and the Supreme Court, they were bullied and threatened with financial ruin by the State if they pursued their cases. In a judgment recently, a High Court judge said those who withdrew their cases were no longer entitled to compensation.The State is now saying that, in addition, proof must have been shown by the people looking for compensation that a prior complaint had been made, which is an impossible burden for anyone to try to achieve.

Nine months after the European Court of Human Rights judgment, the Taoiseach invited Louise O'Keeffe to Government Buildings to discuss the issue with her. She asked not for anything for herself but that the other victims would be looked after. We can see now what is happening. The only remedy open to those victims is a political remedy. I ask the Leader - the Fianna Fáil group is proposing this - that Louise O'Keeffe be brought into the House in the autumn as a representative of those victims of child abuse to talk to us about what we should and must do for the victims. The State continues to fail them and, unfortunately, continues to abuse them.

I wish to raise a second point in regard to the Taoiseach's comments at the MacGill summer school that the EU needs to prepare for the prospect of Northern Ireland rejoining the Republic. I believe the issue is not that the EU needs to prepare but that we need to prepare. There is no plan to achieve Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution. The reason is not now an issue of culture or religion; it is economic. The economic argument that we can put forward as to why Northern Ireland should rejoin the Republic is borne out in the UN development index which measures health, education and income. The Republic ranks sixth in the world on the index, equal to Germany, and just above Canada and the United States. The UK is 14th, while Northern Ireland, as a region, is 44th in the world, and is going to go below 50th and join Romania and Kazakhstan.

The issue is how we get from where we are today to where we want to be. I do not agree with this idea of a referendum sooner rather than later. The issue is how one makes a convincing argument. We should never ask anyone to vote for a worse future; we must ask them to vote for a better future. I think that, together, we would have a better future. A recent report by the Oireachtas employment committee stated that an all-island economy would be boost to everybody, in particular in the areas of education and farming, as well as on other issues. I ask the Leader to organise this House, whether through the petitions committee or through the Cathaoirleach, so we could start bringing in the experts to discuss this issue. It is not that the EU would prepare but that we would prepare.