Regret at Stormont’s Refusal to Widen Scope of Abuse Inquiry to Include Clerical Abuse
22 November 2012
Below is an extract from the speech by TUV leader Jim Allister during Tuesday’s debate on the Abuse Bill:
I begin by expressing regret that amendments that I sought to table, to widen the scope of the inquiry to include clerical abuse, are not before the House. Right as it is that we address the issue of institutional abuse, I think that it is unfortunate that in doing so we create a hierarchy of abuse victims — those abused within institutions, and those abused outside institutions, who, predominantly, were the object of clerical abuse. I have heard others in the debate say that that issue cannot be forgotten about and cannot be swept aside, but the reality of the Bill is that it does forget about it. I have yet to hear affirmations that that will change. I think that this was an opportunity to address all abuse, including clerical abuse, and I very much regret that it has not been taken.
Mr Lyttle: I thank the Member for giving way. For the record, is the Member willing to go further to acknowledge that Members have said not just that victims of clerical child abuse should not be swept aside but that there should be a process to investigate that type of abuse?
Mr Allister: I have said that I have heard Members say there must be a process, but I am waiting to hear of that process. That is the point I was making. There is certainly nothing in the Bill to advance such a process in that regard.
I make the observation about the hierarchy differential between an inquiry for victims of institutional abuse and no inquiry for the victims of clerical abuse in the context where one has concerns at the manner in which, heretofore, clerical abuse has been dealt with. I invite Members to cast their mind back to just a couple of years ago, when this matter came up before the Policing Board, for example, and issues were raised. Why was it that the PSNI, in investigating clerical abuse, was satisfied with simply receiving résumés or summaries from the church hierarchy on what their archives contained? It never saw or investigated the archives, and there seemed to be a deal —
Mr Speaker: Order. Earlier, I said that this is a very sensitive issue, but we really should not be debating an amendment that has already been rejected and not selected. I am trying to give Members as much latitude as possible in and around these sensitive issues, but I ask the Member, and Members, to come back to the amendments that are before the House this morning.
Mr Allister: Mr Speaker, I ask only for the latitude that might parallel, to a lesser degree, that given to Mr Kennedy to talk about abuse in another jurisdiction. I am talking about abuse in this jurisdiction. There was no restraint on someone else talking about abuse in another jurisdiction. I will not labour the point, but I want to make the point that there is a residual degree of resentment among the victims of clerical abuse. Some have told me that this inquiry has no focus for them. That is unfortunate in the context that, heretofore, there have been suggestions that the PSNI, in investigating clerical abuse, has been satisfied with summaries of the archives from the Catholic Church, rather than actually seeing the documentation. There seemed to be some sort of deal that led to that situation, and that was wrong. The issue was raised by Mr Basil McCrea when he was a member of the Policing Board, and it is still unresolved. So I regret that we are not widening the ambit of the Bill to deal with that issue.
