Ryan debate deferred - Insensitive and stupid

IT is typical of our politicians that a long-awaited and important debate on the Ryan report has been deferred to facilitate a doomed vote of no confidence in the Government.

This Fine Gael motion has no chance of succeeding and will hardly be much more than a set-piece slagging match between the newly emboldened and recently admonished.

How much more statesman like it would have been of Enda Kenny if he had acknowledged that he would love to see such a motion succeed but, realising that it would not, accept that the Ryan debate proceed.

Did none of Mr Kenny’s advisors think that those who endured the appalling abuses described by Judge Ryan deserved, after decades of being ignored, to have their story heard in this country’s parliament?

A silent March of Solidarity through Dublin city centre was planned to coincide with the debate. The march will go ahead and yesterday, showing a better grasp of reality on this issue than Fine Gael, Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe called for public support for the march.

The Ryan report documented decades of the most inhuman abuses. It is the life story of the thousands betrayed by us all and the debate on it should not have been dismissed like an optional extra. By supporting the march we can show solidarity with the abused and our disdain for those who stymied the debate.