Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

There is a lot in what the Minister said about her intention to examine, evaluate, check this and check that. She referred to an obligation on the HSE. What we need is a statutory responsibility on the HSE. It is not that young people leaving State care at 18 should be at the mercy and the discretion of the HSE, which has often been the case. It is fine for the Minister to say it is the practice she wants to address. It is the practice I want to address but I believe that one of the essential tools in addressing it is the statutory responsibility in the first instance and this is a golden opportunity because we are getting a second bite at it. The last Government failed to conclude its work in this regard vis-À-vis the passage of this Bill and we found ourselves in a general election. I would have thought, all these months later, that the suggested action the Minister is proposing to take to examine, investigate and so on would be done.

A huge amount of work, examination and exploration was done in advance of dealing with this Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2009 in advance of its address here on Report and Final Stages in January 2011 and we are still kicking the can down the road in regard to the statutory right of young people to aftercare on attaining their 18th birthday.

I read some of the contributions from the debate last January. These were good and strong voices and I wish that they were still in this House arguing and fighting these particular corners today. They are people for whom I have a long respect. I speak of the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, who, in response to the same position being articulated by the then Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, stated:

I cannot take seriously any proposal regarding a children's referendum if we continue to legislate to ensure that people do not have a right to after care. I ask the Minister of State to go away and think about this again. When he is framing the legislation, he should ask himself if his child would be safe on the street at 18.

I fully concur with those views.

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