Ms Caoilfhionn Gallagher:

There were quite a few issues there so let me address them as best I can, and I look forward to continuing the conversation with the Senator, I suspect, over the coming months and years while I am in the role. The first thing is to offer huge congratulations to Senator Clonan’s son on his graduation from UCD and the constructors’ championship to Senator Clonan himself. Congratulations on that. I am also extremely sorry at a personal level to hear about what his son has experienced.

When we look at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child analysis on children with disabilities, there is a very wide-ranging list of issues which are identified by the committee. Paragraph 29 of its concluding observations relates to looking at the statutory framework, the policy framework and a whole range of topics, including, ultimately, ensuring that the right of children with disabilities to be heard on all decisions that affect them needs to be respected. Therefore, there is quite a wide-ranging outline of what Ireland needs to do to change in respect of children with disabilities, which chimes with some of the experiences that Senator Clonan is referring to.

With regard to women and, in particular, girls, I highlight that in the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s concluding observations, paragraphs 23 and 24 deal with violence against children, which was one of the urgent items that I identified earlier. In particular, it highlighted a very high prevalence of violence against children, including sexual exploitation, online violence and bullying, coupled with low rates of reporting, prosecution and conviction in cases of violence against children. To quote from the committee, it referred to “severe delays and inconsistencies in related investigations”. It highlighted in that section that there were particular issues based on gender and in respect of girls, but also a particular issue with a number of other groups, such as children in socioeconomically disadvantaged situations, children with disabilities, asylum-seeking children, children of minority groups and children in alternative care. Therefore, there is a real intersectionality and those concerns that were raised in paragraphs 23 and 24 about violence against children and what we are doing about it in Ireland are heightened when we look at certain particularly vulnerable groups. For example, when we look at a child of colour living in a disadvantaged area or in residential care, there are very severe issues.

The phrase “the worst in the world”, to be clear, was Dr. Susan Finnerty speaking specifically about the IT system in regard to CAMHS. I want to ensure that I am not seen as making a more wide-ranging criticism in any way, which I am not.

At present I am in the foothills of my role. I am in the early few months. If the Senator will forgive me, I will not take a view on where Ireland ranks in the league table on the whole range of issues across Europe at the moment. That is something I would like to give further thought to as I continue in my work. There are a number of stakeholders that I have met once in the last number of months and who I will be meeting more in the coming months. There are some stakeholders I have not met yet but who I will be meeting by the end of the year. If the Senator does not mind I will keep my powder dry on that question because I would like to consider it further.