Excluding day school victims 'unjust'

The Government was accused of treating victims of sex abuse in day schools as "lesser beings" than those in residential institutions.

Mr Charles Flanagan (FG, Laois-Offaly) claimed that it was unjust, traumatic and immoral to exclude victims in day schools from seeking redress simply because of a fear that the "floodgates would be opened" if all victims were to be included for compensation.

Mr Flanagan was speaking during the second stage debate of the Residential Institutions Redress Bill, which seeks to compensate financially victims of residential institutional abuse. He said: "The State should accept responsibility having regard to the fact that criminal offences were committed by teachers who were at all times employed by the State, paid for by the public purse, and placed in positions of real trust and confidence".

Mr John Brady (FF, Meath) said the Bill was a "genuine attempt to address what is a very complex, emotional and disturbing issue."