B

Baroness O'Loan (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 8 January 2025

Debate

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Contribution

My Lords, I chaired the Catholic Council for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. My role there was to ensure that the Catholic Church co-operated fully with the inquiry. The CCIICSA still exists, because the recommendations have not been implemented. In that role, I sat through much of the inquiry, and I heard an enormous amount of evidence from victims. Many of those victims were visibly retraumatised by the very experience of giving evidence to IICSA; their pain was very often palpable. It also seemed to me, as I watched, that they were traumatised by listening to others who were giving their evidence as witnesses—but they had to be heard; there is no question about that. The Minister has said that there was a module in IICSA that effectively dealt with organised crime. The people who participated in those hearings, and all the other hearings of IICSA, do not need a further inquiry; they need action. We spent £186 million on IICSA, and it was money well spent. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to finding ways to implement the recommendations now to protect all our children for the future.

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