“The revelations of the systematic and sustained abuse of patients at Muckamore Abbey Hospital  are both staggering in their proportion and horrifying in their implications”, Party representative in north Belfast Gemma Weir has said.

“Permanent mental scars have been inflicted on the patients involved, their families and friends”, she added . 

“The PSNI inquiry will address any criminal wrong doing by individuals but there are wider and longer term issues to be addressed also.  We have seen that, in similar situations, the organisations involved follow an established pattern of initial downplaying or denial followed by minimal acceptance and attempts to diffuse responsibility and blur accountability”, Gemma said. 

“It would be an  outrage and  a totally unacceptable insult  to patients and their families if that pattern were to be followed here. Only a full and open public inquiry can now address these issues, the culture which  facilitated them and identify all the factors and the people responsible”.

No doubt hundreds of reasons will be offered as to why we should not have a public inquiry but there is one overwhelming and undeniable reason why we should – the most vulnerable of the vulnerable in our society have been abused and mistreated by the people and  the system into whose care we entrusted them “, Gemma argued .

They deserve nothing short of a full and open public inquiry.