The Government's response to a call in the Seanad for a public inquiry into St John Ambulance Ireland (SJAI), has been described by one abuse survivor as "a bureaucratic checklist".
Minister of State Michael Healy-Rae was responding to a motion from the Sinn Féin Senator Chris Andrews, who said many survivors had "carried the scars of their experiences in silence and left without closure or justice that a full public inquiry would provide".
Mr Healy-Rae, who was taking questions on behalf of Minister for Children Norma Foley, read from a script.
He said the Department of Children had been assured that St John Ambulance Ireland was fully committed to ensuring that it assisted and provided support to all victims-survivors.
The Minister added that as an independent registered charity, SJAI was not a body under the aegis of the Department of Children and that the Minister for Children had no role in the governance of the organisation.
He said oversight of the governance of the charity was a matter for the Charities Regulator.
During his contribution, Mr Andrews said it was unlikely that the report by Dr Geoffrey Shannon into abuse in SJAI would have come to light without the tireless work of Mick Finnegan.
This evening Mr Finnegan described the contribution by Mr Healy-Rae in the Seanad as "shocking".
"He was disinterested, detached, reading from a script as if our pain, our trauma, was just another item on a bureaucratic checklist.
"His hollow response laid bare the Government’s true indifference. They do not care. Not about the working-class children who were raped in institutions," he said.
Senator Andrews said no one had been held accountable for the abuse at St John Ambulance and that an apology was not enough.
"Survivors have been to hell and back. Some are struggling with homelessness and addiction and are struggling to cope," he said.
Minister Healy Rae said officials from the Department of Children would continue to liaise with the charity to ensure "continued progress" of Dr Shannon's recommendations.
The review into the handling of complaints of sexual abuse at the voluntary first aid organisation, which was published two years ago this month, found its garda vetting system was incomplete, creating the potential for unvetted individuals to gain access to children.
The independent investigation also concluded that St John Ambulance did not have a finalised child protection policy.
The review was commissioned in March 2021 after several men alleged they had been sexually abused as young teenagers by a senior officer at the organisation's Old Kilmainham division in Dublin during the 1990s.