Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegation for their answers. It defies belief that any organisation or individual engaging with children at this moment would not have a culture of child protection first and foremost. I am shocked that we need to discuss this matter in terms of any organisations in existence since the 1980s. It is mind-blowing that organisations would not go to such a place.

Great procedures have been mentioned. Without doubt, there have been some nuggets in this debate from which I have taken great heart. However, for Tusla to have boots on the ground depends on whether we are talking about a Tusla-funded organisation or a non-funded organisation.

There is mandatory reporting. I think I heard that if a statement which is made to Tusla contains an express statement that makes allegations around the management of an organisation, you have the ability to go to the Garda and to say you need to go in and investigate more than just the individual, who is the alleged perpetrator, but beyond that. If there is not an express statement, however, you are limited to the allegations around an alleged perpetrator and then it is investigated by the Garda in the main. On this side of that, there is a safeguarding statement, which could be a cut-and-paste job that is lifted from some website somewhere, but there is no requirement of evidence of implementation.

I have practised in the area of privacy law and the general data protection regulation, GDPR. If I work with a organisation to put in its GDPR principles and privacy statement, it is way more than a statement - it involves every member of staff and everybody involved in that organisation absolutely understanding and challenging the culture and the work practices, etc. I have evidence of that if the Data Protection Commission arrives in. We are talking here about child protection, which is even more important because of its lifelong consequences. There does not seem to be an analogous power in a non-funded organisation and I contend that there should be. According to the Minister's speech in the Seanad in response to a recent motion on this issue tabled by Fine Gael, Tusla has a child protection enforcement unit. That sounds fantastic but enforcement means actually being able to enforce by shutting down an organisation in the same way as can be done in the childcare sector. It is right that Tusla should have those powers.

There should be an ability for our child protection agency to go in and shut down any organisation, however formal or informal, if it does not have child safeguarding at its heart. Am I correct in what I have heard about an express statement, when it comes to the management of an organisation, in that Tusla needs that level of a statement to engage with An Garda Síochána? With regard to enforcement, how do we go to a place where there has to be evidence? Culture should be changing. Anybody who really cares about children and engaging with children should be paranoid about having proper culture in place.