Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I welcome Ms Duggan and her colleagues. I listened to her refer several times to the commonality and the main common factor in the cases of Kyran and Daniel was the impact of Covid-19. There is another common factor to both cases, namely the county of Louth, which I represent. Kyran was born, reared and lived all his life in County Louth, and Daniel spent from his birth up to the day before his first birthday in foster care in County Louth. Ms Duggan will be able to understand that in the context of the people I represent, many homes and lives have been ripped apart by the horror and devastation relating to both of these instances.

I am very disappointed that neither child was referred to in the opening statement. We have a full page of a briefing document that begins with the subject of child protection and welfare and there is no reference to either case, which is a little disappointing. I and three of my colleagues before me have referred to both these cases. It was stated that in the case of Kyran there were learnings from the internal report and that Tusla had learned from that. While I respect that, and it is very welcome, it is of little or no use to Kyran or his family.

I felt at times that when the cases of both these children were raised that Ms Duggan was quick to point out that when children go missing, people jump to Tusla, and there is a reliance on other State services to flag changes. I get that, but Tusla's primary responsibility is to promote the safety and well-being of children. This is why people are jumping to Tusla. I do not say that lightly, but I am sure Ms Duggan can understand. Unfortunately, we have one child who was missing and found dead and another is missing and is presumed dead. It took over an hour in all the responses to acknowledge that one of these children was dead. Instead, references continued to be made to missing children. It is important to acknowledge how severe it is that we have one child confirmed dead and another one presumed dead, which is absolutely shocking. Both these children were in services with Tusla at similar times in the smallest county in the country. It is important that is set out here today.

I would like to offer Ms Duggan an opportunity, and it is entirely up to her whether she takes me up on it, to comment on how she offers reassurance to the people of County Louth. It is probably fair to say that there are many people in County Louth who would not trust Tusla with protecting a loaf of bread, never mind a child.

That is being honest. Many people in a small area have been impacted by both of these cases. It is up to Ms Duggan as to whether she wants to take a moment to reassure them. There are obvious downfalls in safeguarding, vetting and oversight. Are there enough social workers in Louth? Have there been enough over recent years? I will start there.