I begin by saying how proud I am that the Labour Party and my colleague, Deputy Bacik, are bringing forward this Bill today. I also welcome the visitors to the Public Gallery. This is a Bill about fairness, accountability and justice. It is a Bill that is rooted in the bravery of survivors who have refused to be silent and simply roll over and take whatever paltry offers come their way. This country’s history during the last century was, for far too many of its citizens, one of abuse and failure. We are all too aware of the many revelations that have emerged and continue to emerge in recent decades. We have all heard the horrific stories of what was inflicted on innocent children and women behind the high walls of religious institutions in cities, towns and villages across this island. We will never know the real extent of the lives destroyed by institutional abuse during those dark decades. There is a moral obligation on this State and us, as legislators, sitting in our national Parliament to do by right by survivors. Successive governments have recognised that moral imperative. That is what led to the redress schemes that followed the Ryan report, the report on the mother and baby and county homes and other reports. Many of those schemes have been deeply flawed and have, at times, retraumatised victims and their families. Indeed, my wife, Maeve O’Rourke, and her colleagues in Justice for Magdalenes Research and the Clann Project have been to the forefront in advocating for justice for survivors of Magdalene laundries and mother and baby homes. They advocate for redress schemes that are not exclusionary and that live up to the promises of the reports and recommendations that proceeded them. The redress schemes introduced have at least showed an understanding on the part of the State that there was a wrong to be righted. The attitude, meanwhile, of certain religious orders has fallen short of that. We have seen the reports of mixed engagement from religious orders on redress. We have heard the stories right from the mouths of the brave survivors who have had to go through the difficult retraumatising experience of the courts to get the redress they are owed. We know that many of the orders that facilitated, enabled and covered up child sexual abuse for years and years continue to hide behind the legal fiction of lay-run trusts to escape accountability for the horrors they caused. There is a veil of fog around the financial affairs of these orders that is troubling. The total value of assets held by religious congregations, orders and institutions is unknown, despite a number of official processes that sought to estimate these resources. After the mother and baby homes report was published, negotiations with eight religious bodies involved in those institutions sought to secure financial contributions. Only two organisations responded to requests for specific financial information and five did not offer any contribution. We know these are wealthy organisations. An analysis of the financial returns provided by a sample group of religious congregations to the Charities Regulator has shown that collectively they have had approximately €1.3 billion in cash and other assets. What we are really talking about here is impunity. These are wealthy, powerful groups of people who protected abusers in their ranks and now protect themselves from the consequences. I have to say, having gone to one of their schools, the Christian Brothers, CBs, are notorious. It seems that as a policy they do not nominate a defendant to a court case. They use their unincorporated status to avoid accountability. It is sickening to see. This Bill is about saying, "No more." We should not have to accept this. Survivors should not have to accept it. We clearly cannot rely on any spirit of Christian charity from these orders. It is time to get tough and to get survivors the redress they deserve. We can start to legislate for that here this evening if the Government chooses to support this important Bill. The Bill will enable the recovery of damages from these religious orders and the lay-run trusts into which they have moved their assets. No longer will the grubby practice of lay-run trusts shielding orders from providing redress be possible. In short, it would deliver accountability at last. I welcome some of the comments made by the Minister and the encouraging noises from the Taoiseach earlier this week about Deputy Bacik's Bill and how it aligns with Government priorities. This day six months will obviously be Christmas Day. I put it to the Minister that in deferring the Bill for six months, he is acting as the anti-Santa. He is delaying justice. I appreciate it is a complex issue but we have been talking about this for a long time. I urge the Minister to put all his resources into getting the complex legal issues at the heart of this Bill sorted as quickly as possible, and deliver accountability and justice for survivors at long last who just cannot keep waiting.

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Hear, hear.

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