Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his team. I agree with the conclusion to his opening statement, “We have had a busy and productive period of work since our last quarterly meeting.” While we have had the Children First Bill and the Children (Amendment) Bill, the adoption (tracing and information) Bill has still not been published. The Minister and his predecessor stated it would happen shortly. Will we see it before the end of the Dáil term?

Tusla has developed its first three-year corporate plan for 2015 to 2017, which is to be welcomed. Tusla worked intensively to address issues that arose in Laois-Offaly and Louth-Meath. Did the re-allocation of resources and the redeployment of staff to deal with these matters mean services in other areas suffered as a consequence? The Minister stated he is concerned about the number of cases awaiting a dedicated social work service. The committee has been concerned about this for some time too. Tusla has carried out an audit of these cases and is finalising its report for the Minister. When will he have the report?

I am concerned about Tusla’s response to parliamentary questions, which is slow. I tabled questions in early April but I still await responses to them. Tusla is not operating to its potential and this is an indication of some of the shortcomings in the agency.

We met the interdepartmental group on child care last week. However, the meeting was more about how the group was constructed. We got no indication as to budgets. It is difficult to make recommendations when one does not know what type of budget one has.

Regarding provisions from the Government for survivors of child abuse who lived under State-paid foster care during the period 1953 to 1967, abuse which was reported by social workers and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to the Government of the day, the Minister has stated the Government has no plans to carry out any further systemic historical reviews at this time. He referred to the Garda Síochána having a role in investigating historical abuse. We must recognise these individuals have been failed by the State. Accordingly, the State has a duty to investigate these acts as they happened under the State’s watch when they were children. It is not good enough to close the book on it.