Apology Related to Childhood Abuse (Hunger Strikers): Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

No person and, in particular, no agency of the State should in any way regard these individuals as having committed a criminal offence or having a criminal record. A formal statement to this effect will also be issued today by the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration. Certificates confirming this for individual survivors will be provided on a case-by-case basis following receipt of records, including posthumously. The process for this will be put in place by the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration as soon as possible.
Survivors have felt stigmatised - you made this very clear to me in our meetings - throughout their lives, and we must be clear and categoric in removing any taint of stigmatisation from public discourse and the public record.
I once again thank the survivors for being here today. Your commitment, resilience and struggle and the challenges that presented for you personally, as you again articulated to me today, is testament to your tireless commitment to shining a light into the dark corners of both our past and present. I unequivocally apologise to you and reiterate on behalf of the Government, the State, and all the citizens of the State, the profound sorrow for the terrible pain and abuse suffered by you. What you endured on a daily basis as innocent children was harrowing, heart-breaking and wrong.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-25