Seanad report: The Minister for Education should indicate whether she believed it was appropriate that an individual who had made an extraordinary statement about clerical child sex abuse victims should be in a position of trusteeship for the Marino Institute, Joe O'Toole (Ind) said.
Mr O'Toole said a representative of the Christian Brothers had told the redress board in effect that victims had put forward their complaints for money. He believed the House should make it clear that it absolutely and vehemently rejected this statement.
The person who made the allegation was a trustee of Marino and had dealt with complaints made there. "On prime-time television [ he] said to me that he never received a complaint, though I was holding copies of 15 complaints that he had received the previous year. He actually refused to acknowledge them.
"So we know how he deals with complaints: if they're victims of child sexual abuse they're only in it for the money; if they're people doing a day's work in Marino, he ignores them and throws them in the bin. I think this is quite sinister."
House leader Mary O'Rourke said the Brother in question had spoken of an element among those who had gone to the board.
Wrong things had been done by Brothers, nuns and clergy, but it was wrong to cloud everybody with the same bad aura.
In a debate on school transport, Tim Dooley (FF) said allegations had been made to him that vehicle test certificates could be bought. He had no direct proof of this but it had been brought to his attention that it had happened in a number of cases. If this was so, it was unbelievably serious.
He was concerned about aspects of the hiring of private buses to augment the school fleet. Minister of State for Education Síle de Valera said if Mr Dooley had evidence of wrongdoing, he should let the authorities know.
Ulick Burke (FG) asked why the Minister had not confirmed the commitment "given under pressure by the Taoiseach to audit and test the school transport fleet independently".
Ms de Valera said Minister for Transport Martin Cullen had asked for an independent review to be carried out within Bus Éireann of the arrangements for the operation and maintenance of its fleet, owned and contracted, to ensure ongoing safety and roadworthiness.