I endorse Deputy Doherty's proposition. I concur with her amendment, including the re-phraseology concerning one word. It is important for members to recognise that the developments of recent days concerning the €8 million set aside for 112 of the victims is not by any means the end of the story. Not all the victims have been provided for and the truth is what needs to be established. There is a major element of concern regarding the measures in place to guarantee that there can be no repeat of the abuses that were perpetrated by Michael Shine against innocent young children and young male adults. Some of them were repeatedly abused as they presented over their years of growing with different issues to be addressed in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.
I have personally met a number of those victims. They will take no offence when I say that they have been deeply affected by their experiences. In many instances, they were fearful even to draw attention to what had happened to them. They were completely unable to understand what had happened to them. They explained to me that in some cases there was parental rejection and an inability by their parents to comprehend what had been taking place. It is only as time moved on and the victims became more aware of the world and its challenges that they understood what had happened to them. Some have been deeply and grievously hurt.
Only recently, in our deliberations on the report handed to the Minister by the Chairman, we have talked about the deep hurt that emotional abuse can create. This was not physical abuse in terms of scars that one can note on arms or legs but, just as with emotional abuse, there are deep mental scars for many of these victims - certainly for those I have met, including a significant number we have hosted here at the Houses of the Oireachtas on a number of occasions. They have been ably represented by Ms Bernadette O'Sullivan of the group Dignity 4 Patients. That group has done Trojan work in terms of advocacy and support for this particular cohort of victims.
It is important that we should address the Medical Missionaries of Mary who have more than a case to answer. In the words of the current Minister for Health, while in opposition, there is a need for the health authorities, the then North Eastern Health Board, which in more recent times is the HSE North-East-----