Deputy Creed proposes that the scope of the Bill should be extended to include those who suffered abuse in foster homes, Magdalene laundries, orthopaedic hospitals and day schools. If children were consigned to a residential home and went from there to an orthopaedic hospital, I want to clarify that they would be covered by the Bill.
In the course of the Second Stage debate the question of the scope of the Bill to deal with abuse that took place outside residential institutions was raised. I said the Bill would deal with a particular situation, abuse in industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and similar institutions.
Deputy Creed asked what institutions the Bill could be extended to cover. Deputy Coveney asked whether its scope could be widened while the redress board is progressing with its work. The list is set out and the mechanism for extending it is available. This can be done at any time. For instance, if a Minister discovers, through any of the discussions or reports that become available, that there is a case to be answered by an institution that is not included, it can be brought forward. It would be a matter for the Minister to put the matter of the process for doing so before both Houses of the Oireachtas.
This issue was brought graphically to light by the publications, documentaries and accounts of survivors in recent years. They dealt with a particular situation, abuse in schools, reformatories, orphanages and similar institutions. The purpose of this Bill is to deal with situations where children were abused while the State was acting to a very significant degree in loco parentis, in regard to children removed by the State from their parents and placed out of their protection. Deputy Creed’s proposal is that the scope of the Bill be extended to include those who suffered abuse in foster homes, Magdalen laundries, orthopaedic hospitals and day schools.
Because I am not accepting these amendments it should not be taken that I am asserting that abuse did not take place in those locations, or that where it occurred it was somehow less wrong and less damaging than the abuse which this Bill has addressed. It is always wrong, however in the case of the laundries, those concerned were adults and here we are dealing with a measure which addresses the needs of people who were abused as children. In so far as children who were still in the custody of industrial schools were sent to work in laundries and suffered abuse there then the Bill already covers them. With regard to the situation applying to foster children, currently there is no evidence of any significant level of allegation of abuse in such institutions. This raises the question as to whether this Bill should include a solution for which there is not an extensive issue. That said, I want to review the situation further and will come back to that point on Report Stage.
The inclusion of orthopaedic hospitals in the scheme also presents difficulties. In most cases children were placed in the hospitals by parents who continued to have a close involvement with them. As in the case of laundries, however, the Bill provides for the situation where children in institutional care were sent to hospitals and suffered abuse.
In the case of ordinary schools I set out on Second Stage my view of the liabilities of the State and the difference between them and the institutions we concerned with in the Bill. In the case of ordinary schools, children went home to their parents in most cases. If they did not, as in the case of a boarding school, the parents had and were encouraged to have a close involvement in their children's lives. This was a far cry from the regime which obtained in most of the residential institutions. It is also the case that the scheme set out in this Bill is simply not appropriate for abuse situations in ordinary schools, even if the other issues which I outlined did not arise. The Bill deliberately sets a very low proof threshold in regard to claims. It does so because it is widely accepted that the residential institutions, in most cases, fell far below the standards of child care and protection which would have been expected, even at the time the abuse occurred. Therefore it is more likely that an injury which a former resident has today is connected to his or her period in the institution. That is not the case for people who attended ordinary schools.
There is also a practical issue which we should bear in mind if the scope of the Bill is extended to other groups or classes of victims as suggested. I fear the victims of the appalling abuse we are concerned with in the Bill, whose suffering precipitated this redress scheme, would become just a small part of a process which would be destined to last for many years. This is not how we want to bring healing and justice to the victims of institutional abuse. For these reasons I do not agree that we should make such a fundamental change to the Bill.
I see no benefit in laying reports of the kind proposed by Deputy Shortall before the Houses of the Oireachtas. It is not clear what such reports would contain or what their purpose would be. There is, however, a forum which can consider the issues raised by the Deputies, namely, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. The commission will hear accounts of abuse arising in all situations other than family homes. This in itself can be of therapeutic benefit to people who suffered abuse as children in places other than residential institutions. The commission can also make recommendations in regard to action which should be taken to alleviate or otherwise address the effects of abuse on those who suffered it. The commission is independent in the exercise of its functions, so it is not for me to speculate as to what their recommendations may be. In so far as measures can and need to be taken to address the wider issue of the effects of abuse, the Oireachtas has already established a process which can inquire into that.