Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-23
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

First of all, I thank the Deputy for again raising this issue. As I have said, the abuse committed by Leo Hickey was horrific and unconscionable. The suffering and trauma people went through because of him has been life lasting. The Deputy is correct that in 2019, I advocated very strongly that the original redress scheme of 2015 was far too limited. That led to the appointment of Mr. Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill to recommend an expansion of the ex gratia payment scheme. That is what I have already referenced; that opened it up to some degree back then to 128 people. Obviously, not all were in Dunderrow but I did not have the identities of all of them. I represented one or two people myself from outside of Dunderrow, who had come to me as a TD at the time because I was not in Government then. That person would have received compensation at the time but even that is at a modest level, if I am honest.
The legal representatives wrote to the Attorney General last week. As I said, we are going to engage in a constructive way and I do want to see a resolution of this. There are also wider implications in the context of what emerged in the last number of years in some religious-run secondary schools, which led to the scoping inquiry that recommended a full inquiry - which we have established - into abuse in primary schools and all schools across the country. There is also the issue of redress and how that would be handled. An interdepartmental group was established to deal with that, which will have far-reaching implications all round but also with regard to accountability and responsibility.
The established mechanism was that where schools were run by the diocesan authorities or by religious orders, it was those that were primarily culpable in terms of abuse that happened. In the context of Dunderrow, of course, in the 1960s, this was pre any official guidelines from the State or Government to these patron bodies in respect of safeguarding children and guidelines that we have today, like Children First. We have a far greater framework of laws and guidelines to try and protect children, which did not exist then. That is the area where the European court found the State culpable in respect of adequate safeguarding not being provided to schools at that particular time. We will take this forward and revert to the House in due course.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-23