VICTIMS OF abuse cannot be expected to fit “our neat box of
recovery”, Independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan said as she expressed
concern about the deadline for applications for compensation by former
residents of State-linked institutions.
Ms O’Sullivan said it was
“somewhat disquieting that a time limit for compensation is being
imposed given that there is no time limit on the pain and suffering of
victims”.
People coped in different ways and “need varying lengths of time to deal with their grief and pain”.
That
pain did not stop with those who directly experienced abuse. The Dublin
Central TD said “in the north inner city we are seeing the impact on
the next generation, with the children of abused survivors equally
turning to drugs, alcohol and suicide”.
Speaking during the debate
on the Bill to wind up the Residential Institutional Redress Board, Ms
O’Sullivan said the board’s findings were disturbing that children were
“put into these institutions for the most flimsy of reasons such as
being born out of marriage, being orphaned or having missed school”.
She
questioned the “mindboggling” daily rate of €800 for board members.
Fianna
Fáil education spokesman Brendan Smith said one clear message emerged
from the report on clerical abuse in Cloyne diocese; that “the State
must find a way of hearing victims across the entire country”.
He
added that the HSE audits of dioceses and the national reviews by the
boards for safeguarding children in the Catholic Church had been “under
way for some time”.
He called for the evaluations of the review to be
undertaken as quickly as possible so that any “further investigation, if
necessary, should be initiated without delay”.
Sinn Féin
education spokesman Sean Crowe said the deadline for applications did
not take account of cases in the Cloyne report, including one woman who
took “40 years to come forward and tell her story”.
Sinn Féin
deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said the Government’s response to the
Cloyne report “is starkly at odds with its response to the abuse of
women and children in the Bethany Home and at Magdalene laundries”.
“The
continued exclusion of Bethany Home from the redress board is wrong”,
and the “recent rationale” by Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn “for
maintaining this exclusion does not stand up to scrutiny”.