Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 June 2004
83 Ms O’Sullivan asked the Minister for Education and Science the legislative changes sought by the investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse; if it is intended to agree to the amendments sought; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19494/04]
View answerFollowing the appointment of Mr. Justice Seán Ryan as chairperson designate of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, the Government requested that he carry out his own independent review of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. This report, together with a review of the operation of the commission carried out by the Attorney General, were published on 15 January 2004. The Government has accepted the recommendations in Justice Ryan's report for legislative amendments to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Act 2000. My Department is in ongoing contact with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel in connection with this matter and work on drafting legislation to amend the Act is at an advanced stage.
Amendments envisaged in Judge Ryan's report that will be made to the legislation include the removal of the obligation on the committee to hear each allegation of abuse made to it, a provision to allow for joint hearings to take place, provision for single member division of a committee, and the right of a complainant to withdraw a complaint subject to the consent of the committee.
Since the publication of Judge Ryan's report, the commission has been engaged in a consultation process with all relevant parties to facilitate them in expressing their views on the content of both reports and to enable them to make suggestions on the future operation of the investigation committee of the commission.
This process has now been concluded and, in a statement issued by Judge Ryan on 16 June 2004, the commission decided to proceed in accordance with a position paper that it published on 7 May. This means that the investigation committee now proposes that individual perpetrators of abuse will not be named by it unless they were convicted in the courts and that it will call witnesses to give evidence of abuse suffered by them to the extent necessary for the inquiry. The statement of 16 June and the earlier position paper from the investigation committee are available from the commission's website.
Arising from the above, I understand that the commission is in the process of finalising its requests for further legislative changes and that it will write to the Government with those changes in the near future. I will bring any such requests for additional changes to the legislation to Government for consideration as a matter of urgency upon receipt of the request from the commission.
While work on the amending legislation is at an advanced stage, it is not possible to publish any of the amending legislation in advance of any additional requests for changes being received. However, I understand that a further potential difficulty regarding the publication of amending legislation is in the process of being resolved in that the Christian Brothers have indicated that they will not be proceeding with the Supreme Court challenge to the commission that was scheduled for 29 and 30 of this month.
At this stage, it is envisaged that amending legislation will be published in advance of the Dáil term in the autumn. However, the commission has indicated that it intends to proceed with its hearings in advance of any amending legislation being enacted and I fully support it in this approach.
One of the reasons for delaying amending legislation was the Christian Brothers case which was expected to be heard at this time. I presume the information is correct that they are not going to proceed with the case. Does the Minister see any other obstacles to proceeding with the legislation? Does he expect to publish it before the next Dáil term and, if not, perhaps he can indicate to the House the timing involved?
The Minister said originally that he would not favour what was described as "sampling", whereby only certain cases were to be heard by the commission. Has he had discussions with the various groups representing survivors of child abuse about this issue? If the Minister feels that a person wants to give evidence to the commission, he or she should be allowed to do so. In his reply, the Minister referred to a number of people sitting on the commission for the hearings. Will parallel hearings be held in order that different elements of the work of the commission can be carried out at the same time by different people? As well as the issue of time scale, this was one of the issues raised by Ms Justice Laffoy when she originally expressed concern at the lack of support from the Department of Education and Science.
The question of provision for a single member division of the committee was raised in Mr. Justice Ryan's report and the Department will make provision for it. However, if I recall correctly, the judge did not favour that approach even though he felt it would be a good idea to have provision for it in the legislation because he foresaw difficulties with it.
The judge has been consulting all the relevant parties in regard to the sampling issue for the past week or ten days, for which I commend him. He has listened to all the groups and is making his own decisions in this regard. Soon after the judge's appointment, the survivors' groups asked me to ask him to write to each victim who had applied to see if he or she wanted to continue his or her hearing. I note from newspaper reports in the past two or three days that he has done just that. In that context, the dialogue should continue between the commission and the survivors' groups through the open public hearings because it is the best way forward.
I do not want to interfere in the work of the commission itself. Obviously, there was a difficulty when Ms Justice Laffoy resigned and I met the groups at that stage to try to assure them that the Government wanted a conclusion to the inquiries and so on. There are also ongoing contacts between officials in my Department and the groups in regard to a variety of matters. However, it is better for matters relating directly to the commission to be dealt with by it and the survivors' groups to agree a process.
In my original reply, I indicated that, subject to what Mr. Justice Ryan reports, I hope the legislation will be published before the Dáil resumes for the autumn session. This is subject to the proviso that the judge might, as a result of the work before him, throw up a recommendation which could cause a difficulty.
