Dr. Niall Muldoon:

This question is very important for the Senator. The experience and passion she has for it are very clear. She knows better than I do. I come to it as an outsider trying to learn. She asked who is held accountable. We have a statutory obligation to look at the public services provided to children. Where they fail, we hold them accountable. Who is accountable? It is the body or individual that is statutorily obliged, in this case the local authority and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Those are the two that are accountable. We send our reports to them.

We engaged with the local authority and we sent our reports to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and also the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. As the latter now has responsibility for diversity and integration, we feel there is also a role for him. The Ministers are clearly accountable. In addition, if the Senator asks who is the boss of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, it is the Taoiseach and the Government. That is where the accountability is and that is why I have been engaging with them as much as with the local authorities.

We feel that we get more done if we engage with organisations and try to find a way to make things work and change things from the inside, rather than to use a stick, so to speak. That is why we have a follow-up. We could have finished this two years ago but we would not have had the support of the local authority when we did.

We engaged with it and asked how we could get this right. We got the local authority on board to support us and to accept the recommendations. We have a follow-up at six months and 12 months. If there is a failure or I am not satisfied after 12 months, I have the option under the legislation to write a special report to the Oireachtas and ask it to take over from there. That has not had to happen yet and I hope it will not happen in this case, but it is an option that is always available to us. That is where the accountability lies.

As regards the recommendations, they are like children - we cannot choose one over the other, as I am sure the Senator knows as a mother. We only make recommendations that are crucial. We make important recommendations and I would hate to think that if we identified the top three recommendations, the local authority would sit back and not bother with the rest of them. There is a statutory obligation to provide housing, so we have asked the local authority to audit the files for the 11 families with which we were engaged and to ensure those families have not been in any way failed in terms of the way their applications were administered. We have also asked the local authority to look at all the family applications relating to the site and to create a timeline plan for provision of accommodation up to 2024.

Those are the recommendations that stand out for me but I would not say one is more important than another because it is also important to have sewerage, water and a playground. Children have a right to play and I keep reminding many public authorities that play is not an add-on luxury; it is where children escape, have fun and leave everything behind them. It is also where they learn how to climb, jump, take turns and escape real life. It is crucial that they have a play area. A simple thing such as a footpath to the nearest housing estate to allow them to get to school safely and cleanly is also important. That is why I would hate to choose one recommendation over another. They are all crucial.

On the question regarding investigations, we hope there will not be any more investigations but our job is to accept any complaint that is submitted and to consider it individually. In the context of engagement with the local authority, as Ms Ward addressed, what I would like to do and may do after the meeting is to invite the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to join us at that meeting. That might make for a much more rounded meeting at which we can try to engage that so that everybody is talking together and there is no miscommunication. That may be a way of preventing further investigations. However, if people come to us, we will look at each case individually and see what happens.