The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, spent time in County Louth last Friday opening a welcome new social housing development. It was great to welcome him to our hometown and our small city. In the time he spent in County Louth, there was a very strong chance that some of the men he met are survivors and victims of disgraced paedophile and former doctor, Michael Shine. The spectre or ghost of Michael Shine hangs over my hometown, counties Louth and Meath, north County Dublin and parts of counties Cavan and Monaghan. That one of Europe's most prolific sex offenders and abusers managed to get away with immunity with what he did over many decades working in one of the most substantial and largest public hospitals in our country requires the kind of statutory investigation that successive Governments have not been of a mind to grant. Michael Shine has spent a short time behind bars. Prosecution through the criminal courts and spending time behind bars having lost one's liberty for a short period does not accountability make. Accountability is a more complex matter. When we discuss the crimes of Michael Shine and the way in which he was allowed to operate with impunity up until the mid-1990s, thanks to the actions of Bernadette Sullivan, we need to look more closely at the environment in which he was allowed to operate. As I have said in this Chamber on countless occasions, there was a network. The system allowed this to happen. It turned a blind eye to the damage done to my friends, my peers, my contemporaries, and it went on for far too long. It went on for years without any intervention whatsoever being made. I want to say, hand on heart, that I am grateful - if gratitude is the right emotion or position to take - for the interest the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, has taken in this matter since her appointment as Minister for Health. That interest was generated by the remarkable campaign and advocacy work done by the Dignity4Patients group and the victims and survivors, individually and collectively, of Michael Shine, many of whom are friends, contemporaries and peers of mine - people I grew up with. They deserve a form of justice that has been denied to them to date. In the context of the scoping exercise process we are in at the moment, it is appropriate to acknowledge that many of the survivors and victims who have engaged with Lorcan Staines and the experts who are advising on the scoping exercise have acknowledged that this is the most significant initiative taken to date since they first went public. Some of them had to go public and waive their anonymity and tell their story in public. They should not have had to do that. I pay tribute to their courage, bravery and tenacity, and to the bravery of their families as well, and to the Dignity4Patients group which supported these men in very difficult circumstances who had to state publicly what happened to them, and all of the vulnerabilities that it involved. It has been a remarkable journey. I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of the scoping exercise. I do not necessarily want to interrogate the words of the Minister today and what she said on previous occasions, especially back in March in this House, but there is a clear expectation that a form of statutory inquiry or commission of investigation will emanate from this process. We know the legislation guiding these processes. We are aware of it and we understand it. We are conditioned to expect a bespoke arrangement to allow an investigation that has a statutory basis to happen. Without pre-empting the outcome of the scoping exercise, which would be unfair to those who are involved – I do not necessarily want to scope out what the frame of a process like that would look like - there need to be powers of compellability. An Garda Síochána needs to be held to account for how it handled the management of complaints over the years. Clearly the Medical Missionaries of Mary will be involved in that as well, as the owners and operators of the hospital before it was taken over by the North Eastern Health Board, which was, to the best of my recollection, in 1997. In addition, the old North Eastern Health Board, the Department of Health and any other agency that had any kind of responsibility whatsoever from the point at which former Dr. Michael Shine was allowed to perpetrate these crimes against young children, who are now young men, must be involved. Many of the men who suffered at the hands of Michael Shine are now dead. They have gone to their graves without any form of public accountability for the actions of Michael Shine, the way in which these crimes were allowed to happen and how he was permitted to operate with impunity for so long. There are lots of unanswered questions. This is an initiative I support and that the patients support. As colleagues said earlier, it is a constant battle. The very first statement I made in this House when I was elected back in 2011 was for additional funding for Dignity4Patients. That funding was never more essential than it is now because more victims and survivors are coming forward. When this emerges again into the public domain, it piques interest. Clearly, financial support and advocacy support are required. I appeal to the Minister to have an open mind on that and to grant the group the support it needs to help the victims through this very welcome process.

Sentiment score: 0.15