Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their presentations and for appearing before us to deal with this issue. I do not want to be repetitive. Both speakers and the Chairman have indicated that the scenes in the programme were horrific. It is safe to say that what was viewed would be every parent's worst nightmare. My sister, who has had a child in a crèche for a number of years, heard me speaking about this on the radio and told me that she would not watch the programme because she did not want to think about anything that could have happened. This matter has struck a chord with parents throughout the country. The purpose of this meeting must be for us, as legislators and policymakers, to get to the bottom of how this could have happened and to see what can be done to reassure parents in terms of what we can find out and what actions are needed on the part of the Department and Tusla.

Mr. Lee made a very fair comment when he stated that last week's programme does not represent what happens in all crèches. I and, I am sure, my colleagues have had a lot of communication from crèche owners who provide excellent services, who feel very hurt by the scenes shown and who fear that the message could be transmitted that they are not providing care of the utmost standard. I received correspondence from somebody whose child attends one branch of Hyde and Seek that allegedly has been managed quite well by another individual, which shows that this is a very difficult and nuanced issue and that we must be very practical about how we approach it. Mr. Quinlan alluded to the fact that knowing that Tusla exists to oversee and to be reported to if there are suspicions about safety is a call to arms for parents and that everything should be reported if there is even the slightest suspicion. Clearly, the structures exist. They may need improvement but they do exist to protect children, which must be the primary concern at all times.

One question that has probably been asked by many people over the past week and during the coverage of this is how a relatively small group of reporters working for RTÉ on perhaps a relatively small budget managed to uncover these issues in a crèche that had not been consistently identified by Tusla. How was this possible? Can our guests answer as briefly as possible because I have limited time to ask questions?