Amendment No. 3, in the name of Deputy Richard Bruton, proposes to insert "pain, distress or" in the definition of abuse in section 1(1)(a). If amended, it would read:
"abuse", in relation to a child, means—
(a)the wilful, reckless or negligent infliction of pain, distress or physical injury on, or failure to prevent such injury to, the child,
This amendment also, to some degree, deals with the ground covered under the previous amendment which the Government voted down. It would ensure that where a child suffers distress, as a consequence of abuse or witnessing another child being abused, it falls within the terms of reference of the commission in considering abuse. The amendment also proposes that the infliction of pain, as well as physical injury, would be included in the definition of abuse. One can suffer pain without necessarily suffering physical injury. Pain can be a symptom of emotional distress. If I am afraid, tense and concerned about my safety, events that may occur, how the abuse others are suffering will affect me or if I will be abused, I may suffer a great deal of pain and distress even if I am not a direct victim of physical hurt. This amendment seeks to extend the definition of abuse as contained in the Bill.
The infliction of pain or distress could also extend to an issue I sought to have included as an amendment to the definition of abuse. I submitted my amendment this morning and I understand it has been ruled out of order. I will return to it when we deal with the section. I ask the Minister if this issue is included in any of the legal definitions of abuse and whether he will accept the extension of the concept of pain and distress in the manner suggested in amendment No. 3 to allow for its inclusion. We have learned with some certainty in the past few days that children in residential institutions were used as guinea pigs for the pharmaceutical industry, without parental consent and long-term monitoring.
If children were placed in an institution or home, that institution or home had a sacred duty and trust to care properly for them and to treat them as equally as all other children. I regard it as abuse that a child be used to test untested pharmaceutical products which have not been approved by the relevant regulatory bodies for general use by children. We now know that certain vaccines were used and children were immunised using experimental products. The children were used effectively to test these vaccines. It is scandalous that this occurred.
This does not fall into the area to which the Minister referred earlier when he was concerned that perhaps years ago corporal punishment was acceptable and if a child suffered mere corporal punishment, that is an issue which the commission should not investigate. I disagree with that view in its entirety but I understand from where it is coming. There was an ethos in society in the 1950s and 1960s where it would appear to have been regarded as a good thing that a child be hit occasionally if he or she misbehaved. We all know that occurred. It did not occur just in residential institutions; it occurred at schools which many Members of the House attended and some Members of the House were probably victims of that sort of behaviour.
The Minister does not want that investigated and he is concerned about trivialising, to use his phraseology, the role of this commission. Part and parcel of this commission's inquiry should be the extraordinary breach of trust by institutions and children's homes in apparently making the children under their care available for medical or pharmaceutical research without parental consent, without the children being informed, without their parents or any other relation being informed and without any long-term monitoring as to whether the use of pharmaceutical products had a long-term impact on these children. That is classical abuse. That is abuse which should fall within the remit of this commission.
I am not convinced that the definition of abuse in the Bill covers this area. It would be understandable that Ms Justice Laffoy, in her observations to the Government concerning the preparation of this Bill, would not have considered this issue because we did not know the extent to which this occurred. It was rumoured. It has taken two years since I raised this with the previous Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Cowen, for the commission of inquiry which he put in place, the departmental inquiry, to reach any conclusions. We now have the unofficial leakage of those conclusions but we have not seen the report. Apparently we will not see it for at least another month.
The people who were in the residential institutions referred to in that report regard what occurred as abuse. We do not know because, as I understand it, there are only three instances which have received any public airing. As I understand it, we are talking about three different events and three different products in the context of the institutions referred to. We do not know how many other residential homes for children made their children available as guinea pigs for the pharmaceutical industry in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when the regulations were not as tight as they were in the United States or in other European countries. That is an issue which now requires a far wider investigation and which will require a debate in this House when this report is finally published.
Let us get this Bill right. Let us ensure that the definition of abuse in the Bill guarantees – I want a guarantee from the Minister – that the remit of the Laffoy commission would extend to hearing from those children who were used to test vaccines; that the commission will have the remit to gain access to any institutional documentation which the informal departmental inquiry apparently could not uncover; that it will hear from the children how these revelations are affecting their lives; that it will have the remit to get medical opinion, if necessary, as to whether there are any long-term consequences of what occurred; and that it will be able to make recommendations, as it will be allowed to do in other areas, for any legislative changes which are necessary in this context.
I do not know whether the definitions of abuse in the Bill allow for this. As not only a Member of this House but as a lawyer who has some experience in this area, it is my view that this issue is not properly and adequately dealt with in that context. This is not a criticism of the Minister because he has become aware of what is in this report only in the past two or three weeks. He may be relying on leaks also because he is responsible for the Department of Education and Science and not the Department of Health and Children. Having drawn it to the Minister's attention and the Minister having become aware of what his colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, knows and was able to talk about on "Questions & Answers" last Monday night, I would have expected that the Minister would have introduced an amendment on Report Stage to address this issue. I want the Minister to clarify the position. I want assurances from him.
I want him to take on board the amendment in Deputy Bruton's name, amendment No. 3. Perhaps it could be stretched to cover this issue but I am not sure it does. Amendment No. 4 in the name of Deputy Higgins might be stretchable. It just about covers this issue, but again I am not comfortable that it does. Certainly amendment No. 2 does not do so and I do not think the case would be made that it does. This is an issue which we must get right and today we have an opportunity to get it right.
This morning I tabled an amendment to allow this serious issue to be expressly included within the definition of abuse. It was tabled before we took Report Stage in the House. It is my understanding that where amendments are tabled to Bills before the debate starts on Report Stage, there is a discretion to allow those amendments to be debated. It has certainly been my experience that in the past in the middle of Report Stage Ministers have come into this House and asked the permission of the Opposition to process additional Report Stage amendments which had not originally been submitted, and we on this side of the House have co-operated on occasion. I want the Minister to have time to consider this issue before Report Stage is completed. My understanding is that the specific amendment which I tabled on this issue has been ruled out of order for being late. I ask the Minister's indul gence to allow that the House agree that that amendment be put before us this afternoon on the resumption of Report Stage in order that it may be discussed. Maybe the Minister will feel today that he cannot take it on board but if we discuss it further this afternoon, it will provide the basis for the Minister to look at this issue when the Bill heads into the Seanad. It is an important issue which the House would be remiss not to address in this Bill in the light of the revelations of the past two weeks.