Vol. 547 No. 3
438 Ms O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Education and Science if he proposes to exclude children who were in institutions for deaf and blind children from the terms of the Residential Institutions Redress Bill, 2001; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3650/02]
The Residential Institutions Redress Bill, 2001 is progressing through the Houses of the Oireachtas and Report Stage is scheduled for 20 February 2002.
In the course of the Second Stage debate the question of the scope of this Bill to deal with abuse that took place outside of residential institutions as defined in the Bill was raised. I said in that debate that this Bill deals with a particular situation – abuse in industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and similar kinds of institutions. This is an issue which was brought graphically to light by publications, documentaries and the accounts of survivors in recent years. The purpose of the Residential Institutions Redress Bill is to deal with cases where children were abused while the State was acting to a significant degree in loco parentis in relation to children removed by the State from their parents and placed out of their protection.
Abuse is always wrong. However in the case of special schools attended by children who were deaf and-or blind, in some cases the children went home to their parents on weekends or for holidays. This was different from the regime which obtained in most of the residential institutions. That said, as a result of representations made during the course of the Bill's passage through the Houses I intend to review this further and I will come back to it again on Report Stage of the Bill.
