Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
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I will be brief. What we have heard today has been extremely disturbing. The members of the HSE deputation have already admitted to mishandling and to erroneous and inaccurate information - indeed, misinformation - being provided. We saw from the case of Ann that there was a gross and grave dereliction of duty in terms of the HSE's responsibility of care. There is prima facieevidence of that, quite clearly.

At this point I am worried that there is no disciplinary procedure in place. The abuse has been known about for a long period and there have been a number of investigations. Now, we have to wait further before we are in a position to take any action, on the basis that any action would prejudice the existing investigations. We come then to the question of the commission of investigation that is about to be set up. That could take another couple of years. We end up in a situation, at this point at 4.30 p.m. before the general election is called, whereby no protections are in place that we are aware of in respect of people in care. The HSE representatives have indicated that they did not know what was happening to some of the people named in the reports who are still working in a care capacity. The HSE is unsure whether they were dealing with vulnerable children either.

This is my point. How many children are still under HSE care? What number are we talking about? Does the HSE deputation have any ideas, between now and when we are going to have some outturn from the various investigations, for putting in place any protocols to protect these people? This is a clear dereliction. There seems to be no line management where anyone is directly responsible despite prima facieevidence.

How can we rest tonight and be sure that all the children in the care of the HSE are protected if it has no internal mechanism for dealing with them, as it appears, and it is going to kick everything to touch until such time as the investigations are complete?