Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her opening statement and affording us the time to discuss this very serious issue. This was raised last week during oral questions in the House. Since then, I have been doing a fair amount of research and have gone back under the bonnet of it, so to speak. Last week, I said I felt I was working in the dark. I said so because there are pages of recommendations. I want to know where they came from. From what review? The Minister may correct me if I am wrong in stating the recommendations have five different feeders. Is it possible for us to know which review made each recommendation? What came from the independent report and what came from HIQA? From where was it all pulled together?

Let me give an example. Recommendation No. 4, which is on its own, is that girls should no longer be placed in Oberstown. The comment on this states:

The Board is not in a position to address this matter, which falls under the remit of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to consider as a matter of national law and policy. It has been referred to the Department for its consideration by the Review Implementation Group.

Who made that recommendation? There are numerous others. No. 8 is that "Visits should only ever be screened in cases where it is demonstrably necessary following a robust individual risk assessment." This contradicts recommendation No. 9: "In accordance with the Oberstown policy, visits should never be stopped as a punishment." There are contradictions in some of the recommendations and it is important for us to know where some of them came from. Which reports do they fall under?

Have the recommendations of Professor Barry Goldson and Professor Nick Hardwick fed into the recommendation document?

Have we used the good bits from it? I ask the Minister to answer some of that.