Statement: Senator Bacik Welcomes New Vetting Legislation During Cloyne Debate

STATEMENT BY SENATOR IVANA BACIK

Labour Seanad Group Leader
Wednesday 27th July, 2011

SENATOR BACIK WELCOMES NEW VETTING LEGISLATION DURING CLOYNE DEBATE

Speaking today in the Seanad during the debate on the Report into the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne, Senator Ivana Bacik commended those engaged in the preparation of the report, offered her sympathy to the survivors of sexual abuse in the Cloyne Diocese, and welcomed the publication of the Scheme of the National Vetting Bureau Bill 2011. Senator Bacik said:

“I very much welcome the publication of the Cloyne Report, which exposes many themes with which we have become all too familiar following publication of earlier reports like the Murphy Report into the Dublin Archdiocese and indeed the Ryan Report. Denial of abuse by the Catholic Church authorities, the primary concern of those authorities being to protect abusers, and a lack of concern shown by the Church for victims of abuse and children at risk of abuse; these are all very disturbing features of previous reports and also of this report.

“The two features that mark out this Report, however, are, first, the very recent nature of the allegations; the Report concerns complaints and allegations made concerning the period 1 January 1996 – 1 February 2009. This means that the Report examined actions and failures by Church and State authorities up until just two years ago. The second feature that marks out this Report from the others is the response of the Vatican to the Framework Document (ie the Church's own procedures for dealing with child sexual abuse) – this response undermined the status of those procedures and gave support to persons like Monsignor O'Callaghan in Cloyne who did not support the policies in the document. This is a very serious matter and I am glad that it has been taken up with the Vatican by the Tanaiste.

“Finally, the Report also deals with the failures in adequately providing for child protection measures by the State. The motion that has cross-party support before the Seanad today lists a number of initiatives that the State is committed to taking in order to address those failures. In that context, I very much welcome the publication today by the Minister for Justice of the heads or general scheme of the ‘vetting' bill, that is the bill to place the vetting of persons working with children or vulnerable adults on a statutory footing. This very important bill is long overdue and I really welcome the fact that the Minister has today in the Seanad committed to having the bill itself introduced in the autumn with a view to having it passed into law by the end of this year.”

ENDS