We are all too aware of the ongoing questions raised by the indemnity deal with the Conference of Religious of Ireland – CORI. Many questions have been asked and my party contends that satisfactory answers have yet to be given. Today the Green Party has more questions which put the onus on the Government to prove conclusively that the current Administration, its predecessors and, indeed, the Department of Education and Science were in no way aware, until recently, of child sexual abuse taking place in residential institutions over the past 40 years and, furthermore, that officials were not turning a blind eye to the horrors taking place.
The major questions the Government must address are as follows. Why did the Government grant the church indemnity under the terms of the CORI deal last year when the fast-track system of redress for victims could have been put in place with or without the indemnity? Why did the State not follow the Newfoundland example – pay all the compensation to victims and subsequently counter-sue the church for that compensation? We suspect a political cover-up of the most dis gusting order. The church was happy to be counter-sued. It said that. It said it was happy to go through the adversarial route. It was the Government which was afraid.
The most important question of all is this. Why was the State afraid to go face-to-face with the church in open court over the compensation issue? The reason, we suggest, is that the State knew its culpability was greater than it has admitted so far, and that under the scrutiny of an adversarial trial the true extent of its culpability would have been exposed, opening the Government to far higher compensation than the cosy CORI deal suggests.
The Green Party proposes that this Government has acted with complicity and acquiescence in the covering up of child sexual abuse that occurred in residential institutions in the State since at least 1960, if not before. We further allege that the State has turned a blind eye to some of the most heinous and sick crimes perpetrated against minors, children resident in institutions, for which the State had responsibility. These were children who were among the most vulnerable in our society.
The Green Party calls on the Government to rip the lid off this scandal by establishing a tribunal of inquiry to finally lay to rest the sins of the past. We call on the Government to now come clean on exactly how much it knew about abuse in residential institutions and to explain why the CORI deal of just €128 million was agreed.
It is already in the public domain that the €128 million is a triple sweetener for the church. We know, for example, that the €128 million will not cover a fraction of the compensation needed. We know that most of the €128 million is in land, much of which has been handed over already. We know that many of the schools handed over in the deal were facing financial difficulties and obviously it suited the church to get rid of them.
What has not been raised yet is the question of whether the Government has a case to answer on the negotiations of this deal with CORI because we are alleging now that not only was the State negligent as to what it knew, but it was fundamentally reckless. We suspect the Government knew full well about the horrors being forced on innocent children and is, therefore, legally liable for compensation along with the institutions themselves. There is anecdotal evidence of reports by victims to officials not being followed up. It would take us a long time to find this evidence within the Department's files. We want an inquiry to open up the Department's files and show what the inspectors and officials knew.
Otherwise how can one explain the illogical one-sided cosy deal the Government made with CORI last summer? If what we are alleging is true, it exposes a shameful complicity between the State and the church that covered up the criminal, evil, sexual abuse of children in their joint care. An inquiry is clearly needed to shed light on the whole sorry misadventure – for want of a better word.
If the State is actually contending it did not know, we want to why it did not know? We con test that if the State did not know, then it was guilty of the grossest incompetence imaginable and therefore still has a case to answer which would be best served by an independent inquiry. The suggested inquiry will, among its terms of reference, examine the indemnity clause and the full extent of the State's culpability.
The Green Party cannot be expected to bring forward sufficient evidence to provide a case for the DPP, but we allege that a cover-up went on and is still going on in relation to this whole sorry scandal which demands further disclosure. The onus is on the Government to say it is not so.
