“Taoiseach, I want to read into the record the testimonies of two women who were abused by the principal of Dunderrow National School in Kinsale.”Holly Cairns read the words aloud to a hushed Dáil chamber.The Social Democrats leader chose just a couple of fragments from the scarred memories of two adult women who were sexually abused when they were little girls in national school. Decades later, they can still recount the repellent detail of what was done to them by their primary school principal, the child sex predator Leo Hickey.What she had to say was distressing to hear. People winced at the words.In places like the Dáil chamber and lawyers’ consulting rooms and where “interdepartmental groups” and “scoping inquiries” go about their business, Cairns was describing what is called “historical sexual abuse”. But on Tuesday afternoon in the Dáil, one woman’s recollection of all the “sometimes” in the classroom when one hand was abusing her and the other was doing the same to the little girl in the next chair cut through the talk. And then the words of another woman remembering the moment when he pressed against her for what seemed like an age.“I remember wanting to get out to play before the break was over.” The TD for Cork South-West was quoting two of the 19 women who are now planning to take legal action against the State over its failure to pay them redress for the abuse they suffered. It took many years, but Hickey eventually went to jail for his crimes. Most of those 19 women were witnesses for the prosecution when Hickey was tried in 1998.They are old enough now to be grandmothers. But there is nothing historic about what they remember and how they still feel. It is “incredible”, Cairns said, that the women who helped sent Hickey to jail have been denied redress. “Their testimony was good enough for the criminal court, but somehow it isn’t good enough for the State. It’s unbelievable.” Their situation was the main item at Leaders’ Questions when Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty (standing in for Mary Lou McDonald) and Labour leader Ivana Bacik joined the Soc Dems leader in calling for justice for the Dunderrow women.Doherty reminded the Taoiseach about Louise O’Keeffe, who was one of Hickey’s victims. For years, she fought for redress and to force the State to take responsibility for what happened to her when she was in national school. In the end, she had to go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights for vindication. “The judgment meant the State had to pay compensation to Louise O’Keeffe, but the Irish courts found it was not just her who was abused in that school. We are talking about women who, as children, were abused by the same person in the same school during the same period,” the Sinn Féin TD for Donegal said. And, yet, he pointed out, more than 12 years since that judgment “these women are still waiting, still ignored and still have to fight the State to own up to its responsibilities”.He urged Micheál Martin and his Government to “do the right thing” by these women who are now in their 60s and 70s and are “being retraumatised” by being put in a position where they must sue the State to get what they rightly deserve.It may have been a gloriously sunny summer day, but the mood in the Dáil chamber was dark. Bacik said the Government must act now to deliver full redress to the victims of Hickey as they who remain excluded from existing redress schemes and have had to come forward to share details of their harrowing ordeal. She also broadened out this sorry story to pay tribute to all survivors of child sexual abuse, many of whom have shown “extraordinary courage” in coming forward. “Many of them are still fighting for justice and to be heard.” The Labour leader called for Government support for legislation she was introducing this week to enable survivors of institutional child sexual abuse to pursue redress from religious orders. She said the congregations had about €1.3 billion in cash and other assets, yet they owe the State €750 million in unpaid redress to children abused in religious-run schools.And in recent days we have been confronted again with some of the “darkest chapters in the history of this island”. Bacik mentioned Monday’s conviction of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson for sex crimes against children. On Monday night, RTÉ screened the final episode of its documentary about the pirate radio station owner and “prolific and violent sex offender” Eamonn Cooke.Then last week, we heard of the death of convicted paedophile Bill Kenneally, “whose crimes destroyed numerous young lives and many of whose victims are still seeking justice”. The Taoiseach spoke of the “evil” and “horrific” abuse carried out by Hickey. “I appreciate and I’m fully conscious of the enormous trauma experienced by the survivors of sexual abuse in that school and abuse carried out by Leo Hickey.”He spoke of courts, past commissions, inquiries, reviews and the interdepartmental group and he talked of ex-gratia payments and redress schemes that didn’t work. He clearly wanted to help the Dunderrow women and said the Government would enter into mediation with the group “in good faith”. But there was a legalistic tone to his overall response as he indicated they would have to look at the overall situation “in the context of schools in general”. He had no problem with Labour’s Bill to enable survivors claim redress from religious institutions, saying the proposed legislation was in line with Government policy and they would put in a timed amendment to consider it in six months’ time.Meanwhile, as the afternoon session drew to a close (Richard Boyd-Barrett of People Before Profit and Michael Collins of Independent Ireland also highlighting the Dunderrow women), Tuesday’s headlines from the courts were going online.“Man who shared child abuse images and encouraged sex act on children jailed for 12 months” was just one.