State must 'face up' to wrongs done

Irish society must “fully face up to” to the wrongs that were done to children while under the care of the State, the Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe has said.

In a statement issued after the publication of a damning report by the Commission into Child Abuse which detailed a catalogue of abuses inflicted on young people who attended industrial schools and institutions since the 1940s, Mr O’Keeffe said “unfortunately, we cannot undo the wrongs of the past”.

“However, as a responsible and caring society, we must fully face up to the fact that wrong was done and we must learn from the mistakes of the past,” he said.

Mr O’Keeffe extended his “sincere and profound sympathy” to those who were subjected to abuse while resident in industrial schools or other places, saying “as children, they should have felt safe and protected”.

"The Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children recommended that the Government prepare and publish legislation in relation to a statutory scheme for vetting," he said.

The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, in consultation with his Government colleagues, has commenced the process of preparing the relevant legislation. The Childcare (Collection and Exchange of Information) Bill is included in the Government's Legislative Programme for the Spring Session 2009."

Fine Gael's Alan Shatter said Mr O'Keeffe's comments  were "scandalous and misleading."

"It is shocking that Batt O'Keeffe should attempt to deliberately mislead the public with regard to the extent to which the Government is prioritising issues of child protection. Clearly he has learnt nothing from the mistakes of the past," he said.

"The Minister states, 'The Childcare (Collection and Exchange of Information) Bill is included in the Government's Legislative Programme for the spring session 2009'. He does so with the deliberate intention of misleading people into believing that this legislation will be published and enacted before the Dáil adjourns for its summer break. This is untrue."

"The truth is the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children in its Interim Report published last September called on the Government to publish this essential legislation before Christmas
2008 to provide for the use of 'soft information' in the vetting process," he added.

"Not only has the Government failed to publish this Bill to date but in its Legislative Programme published in April 2009 it confirms that no Bill has yet been drafted and that there is no possibility that it will published before next Autumn at the earliest."

"Child abuse is too serious an issue for it to be acceptable that Government ministers engage in political spin and promote a non-existent legislative initiative,” he said.

Labour senator Alex White said the report depicted “a truly shocking and sordid saga of the systematic abuse and neglect of thousands of Irish children who were handed over by the State into the custody of religious orders”.

“It is very clear from this report that the State and the Religious Institutions share the blame for the terrible treatment meted out to these children,” he said.