I, too, welcome this belated apology after the final report of the investigation. I pay tribute to the survivors, whose immense personal bravery and persistence finally forced the truth out. It sounds like a platitude because successive Governments and we as a society have treated people with contempt. People were dealing with their own trauma and suffering. Complaints were made in the mid-to-late-eighties, yet the Garda, other agencies, the political elites and others chose to protect this well-connected predator over innocent children. The evidence was sat on for so long until another formal complaint was made in 2012. This is the modern era. We thought we were over this and that we had dealt with historic abuses in residential institutions and were getting on with stuff. It is shocking it took so long before and after. It was a conscious, systematic cover up. Even now, we have to ask if we have learned everything we need to have learned. The Minister for Health mentioned, we have robust laws like the Children First Act now, but the system is still only as good as the culture and the resourcing. Deputy Tóibín just mentioned Tusla. It is an agency that lurches from crisis to crisis, leaving vulnerable children in unregulated and unsafe emergency hotels, bed and breakfast accommodation and so on. There have been recent reports in the news that there is movement on that, which I welcome, but there are thousands more on waiting lists without a proper social worker and there are a lot of kids who have come to this country through the asylum process who have gone missing. We need to urgently reform the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004 to end what I believe is the forced silencing of survivors under section 11, which criminally gags them from speaking out about their own testimony.

Sentiment score: -0.12