Speech made by Ciarán Ahern TD (Dublin South West) on the Commission of Investigation (Handling of Historical Child Sexual Abuse in Day and Boarding Schools) Order 2025

Speech made by Ciarán Ahern TD (Dublin South West) on the Commission of Investigation (Handling of Historical Child Sexual Abuse in Day and Boarding Schools) Order 2025 - The Labour Party

The establishment of this Commission of Investigation is welcome, and it is not before time. The scourge of child sexual violence in our schools – and the abject failure of authority figures and institutions to protect defenceless young people from this life-changing abuse – is something that Irish society needs to address.

We need to do so in the open, and we need to do so with a determination to honour those who are speaking out, and to prevent similar abuses in the future. I say this as the chairperson of a National School board at present.

There is no way of protecting children in the future if we cannot acknowledge and address the failings of the past.

I want to record my utmost respect for all those who have brought us to this point. Their determination to see these horrific injustices acknowledged and redressed is a gift to Irish society. It’s a huge service to us all, and it comes at enormous personal cost.

Openness and transparency are so important. I am aware that the Irish Government and other institutions of power have excelled in the past at covering up the reality of child sexual abuse – a reality that they knew about and could have responded to, but chose not to.

We need only look to the Carrigan Report affair in 1931 to see the DNA of denial that blighted child protection in Ireland from the State’s foundation.

The Carrigan Committee, appointed in 1930, held 17 sittings and one of its witnesses was the Police Commissioner who highlighted an ‘alarming amount of sexual crime increasing yearly, a feature of which was the large number of cases of criminal interference with girls and children from 16 years downwards, including many cases of children under 10 years of age’.

The Police Commissioner said that he believed less than 15% of sexual crime was being prosecuted for various reasons. But, the Government chose not to publish the 1931 Carrigan Committee Report nor the evidence given to the Committee.

This was on the advice of the Department of Justice, as we learned from archival files released in the 1990s. The Department of Justice decided that the obvious conclusion to be drawn from the Report was that the ordinary feelings of decency and the influence of religion had failed in Ireland and that the only remedy was by way of police action.

This attitude, that the problem of child sexual abuse was better left unsaid, and unaddressed by the criminal justice system, seemingly for the sake of religious morality and in an attempt to maintain a outward sense of ‘respectability’ for the State, had very real and awful consequences for the children affected.

In 2014 the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Louise O’Keeffe’s favour against Ireland, because over the 20th century the Irish Government adopted an entirely hands-off approach to monitoring the behaviour of teachers in state-funded, religious-run schools (that is to say, in the vast majority of schools in Ireland).

Louise O’Keeffe successfully established that it was a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights – that is, the right to be free from torture and other cruel treatment – for the Irish State not to have any way of parents complaining to government authorities over instances of abuse. Instead, parents were sent to the Parish Priest.

As the European Court of Human Rights ruled, the Irish State failed in its due diligence duties to protect children and young people from abuse in schools – and this inquiry will delve into that issue in detail. Religious and other authorities also failed massively.

We cannot fail in our obligation, now, to ensure a human rights-respecting response through an effective investigation and adequate redress.

The Government’s Terms of Reference for this inquiry need some amendment, and this is to avoid some of the grave injustices done in recent years to those affected by matters that Commissions of Investigation were addressing.

First, it is imperative to listen to what Inclusion Ireland are telling us about the needs of people with intellectual disabilities, who will represent a significant number of those affected by sexual abuse in schools. It is imperative that we learn from the Grace case. Inclusion Ireland’s CEO Derval McDonagh wrote in the Irish Examiner yesterday that in the scoping inquiry, 17 special schools accounted for 590 allegations involving 190 alleged perpetrators – 25% of the total allegations of abuse.

Inclusion Ireland have asked us to raise with the Minister the need to change point 8(a) of the Terms of Reference so that the ‘survey’ which is intended to identify test cases will be accompanied by other methods that give due recognition to the particular communication needs of individual survivors.

Point 11(a) of the Terms of Reference needs to be amended so that survivors are explicitly guaranteed ‘accessible information and communication including, but not limited to, audio, visual, plain English, easy to read versions of all relevant documents and materials, and the inclusion of intermediaries and independent advocates to support the person’s participation.’

Point 11(b) must explicitly guarantee survivors legal representation – so that their statutory rights under section 12 of the Commissions of Investigation Act actually mean something in practice. Section 12 gives every person who comes before the Commission as a witness the right to access and comment on all evidence relevant to them.

At point 12(a), I and Inclusion Ireland are very concerned at the use of the term ‘incapacitated’. Every person has the right to make decisions, including through assisted decision-making where necessary, and this section needs to be amended to comply with our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act. I agree with Inclusion Ireland that there should be an advisory panel of people with disabilities who can provide input to the Chair.

I also want to acknowledge what One In Four have said about the fact that this inquiry will not be a substitute for other forms of justice and accountability. I would argue – and my wife – the brilliant Maeve O’Rourke – has written extensively about this – that some previous state inquiries have, unfortunately, acted as a barrier to other forms of justice.

They have sealed documents, preventing survivors from accessing them. They have refused to give survivors a transcript of their evidence.

They have denied survivors legal advice or assistance, while alleged wrongdoers have the resources to demand and comment on all evidence and draft findings.

And they have not shared evidence with the Gardaí.

It is notable that the IICSA historical child sexual abuse inquiry in England and Wales stated explicitly in its Terms of Reference that ‘Any allegation of child abuse received by the Inquiry will be referred to the Police.’

I would like to know more from the Minister about how, if at all, this inquiry will cooperate with the Gardaí. I think many survivors would expect that if the Commission of Investigation is gathering information about alleged wrongdoers – and particularly if it is gathering corroborating information from many sources – that it will share this information.

I would like to know if the Minister has discussed this issue with survivors and what changes might need to be made to the underlying legislation or the Terms of Reference to ensure that survivors’ expectations of criminal justice are met.

The commission will cover a wide range of experiences and contexts. Some survivors and advocacy groups like Restore Together take a restorative approach to justice, whereas others will be more focused on accountability and redress, like those suing the Christian Brothers. The commission will need to be cognizant and accommodating of both of these approaches.

There must also be greater efforts to mitigate the risk of re-traumatisation in the in the inquiry proper. The scoping inquiry report notes that a key concern for survivors is the risk of re-traumatisation arising out of cross-examination during testimony.

I know there’s a confidential element that has the potential to be more therapeutically informed, but the commission will have no regard to its work in its overall findings.

I would refer the Government to the work of Dr. James Gallen in that regard. He has identified a failure in our approach to cross-examination in protecting the rights of survivors, and that our approach in public inquiries is unduly conservative.

Dr. Gallen notes that is by no means inevitable that cross-examination will remain traumatising and distressing for survivors. It is a choice that has been made, and he has identified plausible alternatives, like ground hearings or the use of intermediaries, which by no means perfect, are a significant improvement on the status quo.

Dr. Gallen goes on to state that “there is no logical justification for denying victim-survivors these accommodations and protections that they would be afforded as witnesses in a criminal trial.” However, he notes that the provision of special protections is likely inadequate given that the system itself is adversarial.

Tribunals and commissions of investigation are not courts and should not be treated as such, particularly where vulnerable people are involved.

Fundamentally, the point I am making, and the point that Dr. Gallen makes, is that we need to adopt a non-confrontational approach that minimises the risk of re-traumatisation to the greatest extent possible.

I mentioned previously that there are different approaches and perspectives on justice among survivors and advocacy groups, including those suing the Christian Brothers. I attended a fine Christian Brothers school, but I have to say it is utterly shameful how obstructionist and downright immoral the CBs and other religious orders have been in terms of redress to victims and survivors of abuse in schools they operated.

My Party leader, Deputy Bacik, has published a Bill that would facilitate child sexual abuse proceedings against unincorporated associations, including religious orders, and would provide a mechanism for recovering damages from the ‘associated’ lay-run trusts set up by these bodies to which their assets have typically been transferred.

I understand that when the Bill was published prior to the election, Deputy Bacik received a commitment from Tánaiste Harris – Taoiseach at the time – to work with her on it. I know that the Bill has been sent to the current Taoiseach as well and there hasn’t yet been a response.

I would urge the Taoiseach and the Minister to work with Deputy Bacik on getting this Bill over the line. The bitter experience of so many survivors shows that any appeals to religious orders based on their moral duty will be ineffective.

The State must have the necessary and robust powers to compel these orders to provide survivors with the justice and redress that they deserve.