Gerard P. Craughwell
Labour Panel · Independent · Ireland
“I omitted to formally congratulate the Leader yesterday on his elevation. I assume there will be bonfires all over Tipperary as he arrives home this weekend. I ask him to please forgive me for not officially congratulating him. I will say a few words at the start at our Presidency of the European Union.”
“It sends a confused and troubling message about hierarchy, authority, respect and the place of the Defence Forces within our nation's life. This matters.”
“The decision to have the Secretary General of the Department of Defence, a civil servant, however reputable, take the salute from newly commissioned officers before handing them their commission represents a deeply inappropriate blurring of roles. Let us be clear.”
“I say to the 64th naval cadet class in their achievement that they remain significant, their commitment remains admirable and their future responsibilities remain vital.”
“It is simply unacceptable that not one Minister or Minister of State of the 38 available was present to officiate at the commissioning of new officers into the Naval Service. I remind colleagues that this is not a minor diary clash or an administrative oversight; it is a profound signal of disregard for the State's most loyal servants.”
“It is an honour for me to extend my congratulations to the 64th naval cadet class on their commissioning into the Naval Service. Their commissioning should be a moment of unambiguous pride for them, their families and the State they have chosen to serve.”
The complete record
Every one of 631 lines we hold for Gerard P. Craughwell, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 9 of 13.
“I say again today that not one God damn father has ever come forward and said he fathered that child or he was the one responsible for putting that women into an institution. The fathers were quite happy to walk away and, in some cases, they accused the woman of being a loose woman or whatever else to protect themselves. Many of them went on to have great careers, families, etc. I hope any of them who watch what Senator Boyhan said today rot in their graves for deserting those they landed in these institutions.”
“I am not going to take a lot of time on this. My colleague, Senator Boyhan, said more than any of us could say. The passion with which he speaks is incredible, and I am proud to call him my friend. Ordinarily, I would be against a motion seeking something to be laid before the House in 12 months, but on this occasion I support this for one reason and one reason only. By looking for it to be reported on a 12-month basis, it means it constantly remains in public sight. From that point of view, I believe it is highly beneficial for that reason alone. We must never ever forget, because we forgot those who were incarcerated in these places. So many have died who will never ever see any retribution. What is going on in Tuam at the moment is heartbreaking stuff.”
“This predates the Minister. It even predates me and I am 72. It goes back a long way. Institutions made a lot of money out of the labour of those incarcerated in those places. Worse still, they made money out of the sale of babies. Somehow or another, they are walking away free. We must not close the door to anybody.”
“Let us never forget about the institutions we are talking about and that the horrific things that took place in these institutions was known far and wide within our society. I remember the great threat as a child was that if you misbehaved, you would find yourself in Letterfrack. People knew that if you went there, you were going to be subjected to brutality, at least, if not other sorts of abuse. Key people in our society knew what was going on. Doctors, nurses and teachers knew what was going on. Blind eyes were turned everywhere. As my colleague Senator Boyhan pointed out, thanks to the bravery of the women who are sitting in the Gallery and their colleagues, we are learning and people are gaining the courage to come out and tell their story and nobody should be excluded. I go back to what I said the last day we were here.”
“We have lost the transfer of transplant patients and other patients who require urgent transfer to the UK. We have lost all that to private companies. Are they determined to drive the organisation into the ground to make it much easier to deal with? It reminds me of the episode of "Yes Minister" and how the hospital ran perfectly because there were no patients in it. Is that what they want - the Defence Forces to run great because there are no serving members? We really need to do something about it. We need the Minister in here for a debate, if the Leader can organise that at some stage.”
“I am not sure who is putting the policy in place and putting the money in people's pockets, but it strikes me that the Government has done what it has had to do and the failure is in whatever way that has been translated to the people in uniform. It is bad enough that the Secretary General knew about these problems as far back as 2017, again in 2019, twice in 2021, and once herself drawing to the crisis that was coming down the line, yet they sat on their hands and did absolutely nothing about it. In 2023, in one of the reports, again they point out the likelihood the impact of air traffic control and other specialisms within the Defence Forces were going to have. It strikes me that the policy that is being followed by the Department is to privatise as much as possible. We have lost the search and rescue service to a private provider.”
“This morning at a meeting of the defence committee we heard how Defence Forces personnel take their instructions from the Department and from the Minister when it comes to policy issues. Last week, we had a meeting about the shortage of air traffic controllers and we were assured everything was in hand. I learned over the weekend that the offer of the bounty if you want to remain in service was not made until late on Friday and it had a requirement that those serving had to be at least eight years in the job and had to be at the rank of sergeant. The five people who are leaving do not qualify. So in actual fact, the measures being put in place by the Cabinet have not encouraged anybody who is serving to actually stay.”
“The number of people they rescue is incredible. We are talking about people whose personal lives are a mess - people who were in institutions, some of whom have hidden it all of their lives. Some of them carry it with them every day of their lives. Some of them are not afraid to speak out or to show their hand while others are afraid. It is important to have a safe place to go where people feel the information and support they get is 100%. For that reason, I support both of Senator Boyhan's amendments. We need some certainty going forward and that is what we are trying to get.”
“My colleagues previously spoke about education and the withdrawal of the service after three years. Having an advocacy group like Sage means that the door is open. It is a one-stop-shop where the victims of institutional abuse can go to get the information they need and perhaps engage in education and many other things. Some time ago, I brought a delegation from the Organisation of National Ex-Service Personnel to Portsmouth to see how the advocacy group there operated. Outside the door of what used to be a sailors' hotel, men and women hang around smoking cigarettes. Former service people with problems pass the hotel. They might come as far as the door and then they walk away. The people outside the door are volunteers for the advocacy group. They approach people on their second time passing the door.”
“It is a rare thing to see a Minister agree to amend legislation when it gets as far as the Seanad. I compliment her. It is a very positive step forward and I thank the Minister.”
“The Minister is welcome to the House. I support my colleague, Senator Boyhan, in the withdrawal of our amendment No. 1. I went to the UK as a very young man. Many of us left in the late 1960s and it is only by the grace of God that we have not finished up in a one-bed flat or bedsit with nothing to look forward to and very little to look back on. As Senator Boyhan said, some people were forced out of this country. They had to flee because of the circumstances in which they found themselves. Those are particularly sad cases. There are people in other parts of the world who we are not looking after with this Bill. However, I must hand it to the Minister. She gave a commitment on the previous occasion she was in the House on this particular section. She has delivered, and I compliment her for that. It shows a willingness on her part.”
“We are now in a situation where a service retention commitment scheme is being put in place but not one air traffic controller in the Air Corps has been offered it. They will be gone out the gate and who will be blamed? Military management will. The Department of Defence has questions to answer and they need to be asked straight away.”
“Chapter 7, paragraph 7 of its report talks about an impending crisis with specialists in the Defence Forces, and air traffic controllers was one group. Moving on to March 2021, the Secretary General of the Department of Defence wrote to the Secretary General of the Department of Transport to say it could not take on search and rescue because there was an impending problem with air traffic controllers. In December 2021, a special committee reported on the crisis in the Air Corps, specifically in relation to air traffic controllers. After 2021, the Minister was not informed until the very last moment. Surely, it is the job of the Civil Service to provide Ministers with timely information so they can plan for the future. The Leader was at the meeting last night.”
“Last night, we held an unscheduled meeting of the Joint Committee on Defence and National Security to explore the crisis in the Air Corps. When that crisis first emerged, the Taoiseach was asked about what was happening and he said it was a matter for military management and its to solve. Military management is not the Accounting Officer for the defence situation in Ireland. Leading up to last night's meeting, my research showed me that it was apparent in 2017 that we were heading for a crisis in the Air Corps as regards air traffic controllers, among other specialties across the Defence Forces, including the Naval Service and Army. In 2019, that was further driven home by the pay commission.”
“As Senator Tully has pointed out, it belongs to those who lived in the institutions under the brutal systems that they operated, whereby people were farmed out as if they were cattle. I would like to see some serious action on the amendment. Again, I congratulate Senator Tully.”
“I, too, commend Senator Tully for tabling the amendment. The wording it contains is important. The Senator talked about measures being commensurate with compensation from the religious. Driving through any village or town in Ireland, the largest building you will find will be the church. I agree with what Senator Boyhan said in that I have known many good churchmen. I have known churchmen who got out of bed at night to help families in distress. They were not all bad eggs, but the problem is that the institutions and organisations benefited greatly from the money. In my area, Salthill in Galway, land was sold by the Church for sites on which to build massive houses, at enormous cost. A secondary school sold off part of its land and apartments were built on it. Where did that money go and who does it really belong to?”
“We need to see what other companies in the State profited from the slave labour of people in these institutions. This probably goes beyond mother and baby homes to industrial schools and other places people were incarcerated. I am horrified by it and I think the Minister would be equally horrified. We have to see if there is a way to make the companies that had that labour pay social insurance contributions for pensions.”
“The issue of the contributory pension for those who were in institutions has to be investigated. If they were employed and somebody got money for the labour they gave, that labour should have been covered under social insurance stamps back in the day, or PRSI. If companies in this country had the use of slave labour from these institutions and the institutions received money for it, then we have to find a way to enhance their social insurance contributions and provide the contributory pension they would be legally entitled to had they been working in decent, fair employment. Maybe it does not come under the scope of the Bill, but it has to be investigated and I will share with the Minister's office the name of the company I have today.”
“The only way we learn lessons is if we hold people to account and it hurts them in their pocket. Then we learn lessons. What was supposed to be paid over to the State by religious institutions has not been paid. So, lessons have not been learned.”
“Following on from what Senator Ruane said about decoupling redress from justice, redress schemes are generally brought in to expedite the quick settlement, as it were, of an injustice. In a lot of cases, the people we are talking about opt for a redress scheme. They have been keeping this secret all their lives and they do not want their personal lives in the High Court, so there is an opportunity to resolve the matter, as best they can, through a redress scheme. We need to be very careful about trying to make justice and redress the same thing. Senator Higgins referred to learning lessons. I hear Departments saying that lessons have been learned, but they are not learned. Senator Boyhan has already outlined a number of cases that are coming down the line with other institutions. Lessons have not been learned. We do not learn lessons.”
“I turn to amendment No. 19. We learned from the military side of the world that there is a thing called moral injury. They say moral injury transitions three generations. To be honest, I cannot see a massive rush for PhDs, Masters degrees or whatever else from the former victims of the institutions, but there will be a requirement for education. Can we spread the education allowances to the families of those who were victims in institutions? Education, as we know, lifts all families. Families benefit from education and a lot of the people we talk about have been living in relative poverty and their families have suffered poverty over the past 25 years, in particular. Will the Minister consider looking at the possibility of passing some of the educational benefits to the children of those who were in these institutions?”
“My colleague mentioned North America, where €3,000 would probably get a person one consultation. Ring-fencing the money to be allocated to people who are outside the State in this way is not adequate. As my colleague, Senator Boyhan, noted, a lot of the survivors now living outside the State were driven out of it and are afraid to come back ever again. We owe them a damn sight more than €3,000.”
“With respect to supports for people living outside the State, I cannot understand why a specific figure was ring-fenced. As somebody who goes to a couple of consultants every year, €3,000 will not take one very far in this world. There should be an expense scheme based on returned receipts such that any time survivors seek medical help, providing it is in accordance with what they went through while resident in an institution, they should simply be able to send the State an expense receipt and be fully reimbursed. What is being provided is a bit of a buy-off and, at €3,000, a cheap buy-off. Let us be honest about it; €3,000 would not take a person very far in the health service in this country and I cannot see it taking people very far in some other places.”
“We spoke about statutory obligations. I have just received a message from one person on the mother and baby homes medical card who sought physiotherapy and was told to go private because of the long waiting list. Where is the statutory obligation there? How does that person overcome that? I fully appreciate the Minister's officials will have informed her of the answers that she is delivering to us today but how does this person get into physiotherapy if the waiting lists are so long? The person is being advised by the organisation that is charged with looking after them to go private. Who is going to pay for that?”
“Senator Boyhan is right that there were all sorts of institutions involved in this. If this is true, somebody somewhere has to pay, and that is for sure. I will not rest on this. By the way, it is not the Minister's fault. She inherited this and she has a tough job to do. However, we cannot let it lie. It has been coming for 25 years.”
“I want to know how this company finished up getting inmates from an institution to work in its organisation, which made profits on the backs of those people while paying sweet damn all as regards their pay-related social insurance, insurance cards or whatever. This is one of the largest companies in the country. If this can be proven, it is outrageous. What did that company pay for that labour, who did it pay for that labour and where did the money go? I am incensed by the message I just got today. We need to get to the bottom of how young people in State care were exploited and now have nothing in the latter part of their lives. I compliment my colleague on mentioning the contributory old age pension but we cannot even do that for them. It is not just religious institutions.”
“I am sorry to come back in so quickly but, as the debate has been going on, I have received a message on my phone from a person who is well advised and well informed in respect of these institutions. I will not read out the name of the company but this person has given me the name of a company, one of the largest companies in the countries and one that is highly successful and highly profitable. There are echoes of "The Shawshank Redemption" here. People were brought out and forced to labour for this highly profitable company. I will share the name of the company with the Minister but I want a Garda investigation into the matter.”
“Were those who employed these people, who got these inmates to work, paying PRSI for them or had they got them working fraudulently? Should we call for an investigation to see what contributions were made for the forced labour, of whatever kind? Did they record their labour? Did they pay pay-related social insurance for the people in their institutions? They may not have been paid a wage but a wage came in through the services that they offered. Were the institutions, religious and otherwise, which had these people, and the farmers, cobblers and anybody else who had these workers, employing them fraudulently? If they were, what is the State going to do about it.”
“I wish to raise a couple of issues. Anything that imposes a charge on the Exchequer can be ruled out of order. Printing the documentation was a charge on the Exchequer. We are a bit selective in that regard. I want to go back to the contributory pension. My colleague, Senator Boyhan, made a point about the religious institutions, some of which have not yet made the contribution that is expected of them. Let us talk about people who were forced into labour. I visited a farm down the country where there was a rather elderly man working as a farm hand. He was allowed into the farmhouse for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He was also allowed into the house for one bath a week. For the rest of the time, he slept and lived in the barn above the cattle. This was not that terribly long ago.”
“Getting back to the appointment of a special advocate, the Bill will lay on the State and the HSE statutory rights that people have. What do we do when those statutory rights are ignored? How do we resolve that? The only way we can get a remedy is to go to the courts. The Minister and I know that if you take the State to court, it has deep pockets and will keep you in the courts until you die. Having an advocate in place who will take up the cause and bring it to public attention might move something to happen. The Minister is telling the people in the Gallery and anyone watching the debate today that we have all these things in the legislation now for them, and if they do not get what they are entitled to they have recourse to the courts, and then God help them, they will rot before they get a solution.”
“Those who suffered in these organisations and institutions need to have a central place where they can go, such as former councillor Damian O'Farrell's organisation. There needs to be an office, a one-stop-shop that people can go to and that ensures they get everything they are entitled to. Too often, we see well-meaning legislation brought in by the State but people do not know how to access its provisions. I support the notion that we should have an advocate.”
“I, too, want to support Senator Stephenson's amendment. I have a difficulty with the way we use the possibility of a charge on the Exchequer to say that certain amendments must be rejected. There is no absolute charge on the Executive by having an advocate in place. As my colleague Senator Boyhan has just pointed out, most of the people we are talking about are in their 60s. Most of them contributed to this State with their labour and got nothing in return. If people have to pay for advocacy, it should not be the State in the first instance, but those who caused them to be in the position they are in. It is wrong to reject Senator Boyhan's amendment. There needs to be a full-time advocate in place.”
“There is something terribly wrong when there are 81,000 addresses empty in this country and we see and hear of people who have nowhere to live. It really is outrageous. Yesterday evening, driving home, I listened to Deputy Matt Carthy on the radio talking about Ukrainian refugees and how we were maybe too generous towards them. How rich is that, when they will be outside the gate tonight protesting about homelessness etc.?”
“At the same time, the Minister has lifted the pay cap on senior bankers' salaries above €500,000 a year. I have to ask this: where are our priorities? I know there is a debate in the other House on homelessness and on Raise the Roof etc. I raise the 81,000 addresses with nobody in them and a bank that was saved thanks to the taxpayers of this country. Would that bank consider going back to the people, who are on their knees, and giving them a break? Maybe it could give them a 60-year mortgage, which they can pass on to their kids. At least they will have something to pass on. Give them a break. Instead of that, we saved them, and they save themselves by throwing all of the debt out to vulture funds that are now sitting back and waiting to make a profit.”
“On Saturday I was fortunate enough to have a ticket to the rugby match. On my way back, as I was walking through Dublin city I was struck by the number of houses that were locked up with nobody living in them. On my drive home through Rathfarnham, I found an entire block of apartments empty. Close to Stillorgan, I saw another entire block of apartments empty. When I looked a little bit further into it, I found there are 81,000 addresses in Ireland that are unoccupied. Some of them are owned by AIB, some of them are owned by Pepper Finance and some of them are owned by vulture funds - who knows? - but they are empty and there is nobody in them. Today, AIB paid €305 million to buy back the 2% shareholding the Government still had in that bank.”
“Condemning him was outrageous. That will follow the man in question right through his career. He deserves an apology from this House. He deserves an apology from the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence. He deserves an apology because all he did was what he was obliged to do. Crotty deserves what he got, and may he rot in jail for as long as it takes for him to realise the impact of what he did. Ultimately, a commissioned officer in this country is obliged to do what the Defence Force regulations lay out for him. If he is assigned by his commanding officer as the person to appear in court, then he has to go there. My heart goes out to him and the other decent men and women who serve this country 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and do so with pride. Thugs exist in every walk of life, and they all need to be weeded out.”
“On Tuesday, I made a statement with respect to the Crotty case in Limerick. The point I made was that senior politicians rushed to condemn all the members of the Defence Forces. I also made the point that a young officer, a commissioned officer of this country, went to court because he was obliged to do so, and gave a report on Crotty's military record. Somehow or other, my friend and colleague Senator Rabbitte misconstrued that as me supporting Crotty and his thuggish behaviour. I have no time for those who commit violent acts, whether against women, men or children. It is outrageous that anybody would support such an individual. However, I again say to those who condemned that young officer that it was us who put the rules in place, namely the Defence Forces regulations that the officer is forced to live by.”
“I agree with Senator Boyhan that Martin Fraser, our ambassador in London, has a particular grá for those who were in institutions. I have to compliment him on what he is doing. He is a wonderful man.”
“We talk about the religious doing it and it was them and nobody else knew anything but when I grow up in Salthill in Galway the great cry was, "If you do not behave yourself I will send you to Letterfrack". People knew what was going on in Letterfrack. I also worked in Letterfrack with my dad. I worked in the kitchens there. I saw the young lads brought down from Dublin to the back end of Connemara to be flogged whenever it suited whoever was there. It was a societal issue. I will say that €3,000 towards the cost of healthcare for people living outside the country is simply not good enough. There has to be a way in which people who have critical or chronic health issues as a result of their treatment can have ongoing support.”
“Does anybody know of a man who was said he was responsible for Mary Whatever-her-name-is or Julie Whatever-her-name-is being put into a Magdalen laundry or sent to Bessborough House and that having had his way with her, he deserted her? I have never heard of one man coming forward. I grew up in Salthill in Galway. There were girls who found themselves pregnant and went away. I know some of them now have a relationship with the child they had but I also know none of the guys I hung around with ever came forward and said they were the father of the child. In fact, they would use the entire resources of their family to deny fathering a child. Let us be honest about it. We can blame the church and anybody we want but it was a societal issue.”
“He was the child of the pregnancy. After 70 years he was reunited with one of his brothers and his sister. The youngest of the three originally put into care died in Letterfrack. When we would ask his brother what happened he said they beat him to death. What my colleague has said about the religious institutions is right. If they are not willing to pay up, we should seize what they have and force them to pay up. Constitutional rights can be set aside, as we saw during the financial crisis, when a state wants to do it. If a religious institution has assets that would pay for some of the damage that has been done, then it should do so. I would also ask the question today as to whether any one man in the State has ever come forward and said he fathered one of those children.”
“A year after her husband died, a cousin of my mother's mother found herself pregnant. On hearing this, her father-in-law took her two sons and dropped them in Letterfrack and took her daughter and dropped her in an orphanage. He had her committed to a mental institution. After the committal to the mental institution she had the child. My grandmother went to visit her and that same man came to my grandmother and told her nobody was ever to visit her again. Years later - I am talking about 70 years later - my mother was in Merlin Park hospital in Galway where she heard the surname of a man. She went to the man and told him it was a very peculiar surname and that she had relations of that surname. The man became totally overwhelmed. He had been looking for his relations. It turned out he was the half-brother.”
“When a girl found herself pregnant the first thing was to bring her to a particular priest in a particular church in Galway and arrangements were made for her to go on holidays. These girls went on holidays and many of them never came back. They were pregnant. My father, who was born in 1905, was as Victorian a man as you could find. When it came to a girl being pregnant outside of wedlock he would ask what she did that was unnatural. I thought it was such a humane approach to take. I worked in the Magdalen laundries on the heaters for the washing machines. I saw the girls who were there. Some of them had Down's syndrome. Some of them were girls who had fallen pregnant. Some of them were girls who, I understand, were too good-looking to live in society. It is absolutely shocking what we did.”
“I acknowledge my friend and colleague Victor Boyhan, who laid details of his private life not just before the House but also the country in order to advocate on behalf of those he lived with and those he had lived experience of. He is one of the great heroes of this entire debacle. I also acknowledge the ladies in the Visitors' Gallery who quietly advocated outside the gates of Leinster House in wet and cold weather. Your bicycles outside the gate, your teddy bears on the wall, all of that brought the message home to us. There has been some discussion about the religious institutions and, yes, religious institutions were horrendous but let me go back to the time of my childhood.”
“Are we aware of the fact that 26% of funding for peacekeeping in the world is paid by the United States? Where will our troops go if President Trump decides to pull that funding? Where will the funding go? What about the triple lock? It is the red herring that is blinding us to the real problems in the Defence Forces. We need a debate on this.”
“I wonder how many of those who condemned the Defence Forces will stand up now in Parliament and apologise to the decent, honest and hard-working people in places like Dún Uí Mhaoilíosa in Galway, which the Leader and I well know, or in Cork, Limerick, Dundalk, Kilkenny and Dublin. Will they stand up and admit we have fine men and women serving our country day and night? Will they say those men and women are available any time this country finds itself in crisis? Will they also say that poor political and administrative management has run that Defence Force into the ground? Will they do that? Perhaps we could have an honest debate in this Chamber where we would look at these things. The triple lock is currently being discussed by the committee. I wonder if the Americans will go through with their threat to withdraw support for UNIFIL.”
“How did we finish up having a situation where, two weeks ago, the Taoiseach said it was the problem of military management and, today we have a memo going before the Cabinet to solve the problem that everybody has known about since 2021? In addition, the Ward report was recently published. After the Crotty case in Limerick, every senior politician in this country jumped up to condemn the Defence Forces. They would not let their daughters serve in the Defence Forces under any circumstances. Peter Ward found there were people like Crotty in the Defence Forces but it was not an epidemic, as it was portrayed.”
“I hear lots of talk about the current situation in the Air Corps in particular, but also in the wider Defence Forces. The Taoiseach recently said the crisis in the Air Corps was a matter for military management. I want to put on the record of this House that military management has no funding of its own. It is at the total behest of the Department of Defence. We find ourselves in a situation where the Tánaiste had to bring to Cabinet today a special memo for the introduction of a bonus scheme to retain air traffic controllers in the Air Corps. The last time a bonus scheme was brought in to retain pilots, as far as I recall, it took a year after the decision was made before the money hit the pockets of the people in question.”
“We are awash with money in this country and we cannot keep the air force going 24-7, 365 days a year. We cannot keep the navy going. I give up. I really do.”
“I have not yet met a soldier, an airman or a sailor who gives a continental damn about the triple lock. In fact, if we are going to do away with it, we should have just done away with it. We should stop all the nonsense and deal with the bread-and-butter issues. Soldiers have nowhere to live. Soldiers cannot move through the system. Five-year contracts have the system totally and utterly paralysed. In 2021, the Secretary General of the Department of Defence flagged the issue with respect to air traffic controllers. Somebody has been sitting on their hands since then and has left us, a sovereign State, without an Air Corps at weekends. The Garda had to move its helicopter to Weston. The Garda is bringing in a fixed-wing aircraft for drug interdiction and it will have to be in Weston. We have to start getting real.”