Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I will come to that in a moment. By their nature, they are expensive and take a long time. I established a commission of inquiry into Leas Cross but only following the report by Professor Des O'Neill. After his report it was clear that there were unanswered questions that could only be dealt with through a commission of inquiry. That inquiry was established 19 months ago. We recently extended the term in which it was to report. Notwithstanding the fact that we have an outstanding sole member who has all the support he would wish, these matters take a considerable length of time. The purpose of the inquiry route that has been established by the HSE, with the support of the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews and me, is to establish the facts within a six month timeframe.

The inquiry team will be chaired by Ms Norah Gibbons, whom I may have met but do not know personally. However, those who know her reputation know her to be a person of the highest integrity. Yesterday, she said: "I will conduct a thorough, open and expeditious investigation into the circumstances surrounding the neglect and abuse of the children involved." She went on to say:

If my terms of reference are not broad enough I have the freedom to expand them. I will have access to independent legal advice and should supplementary skills be required additional members can be co-opted to the inquiry team by me.

We have put in a mechanism that can establish the facts as quickly as possible because we all know medicine is not an exact science, but when we deal with abuse in a family it is an impossibly inexact science.

We know from health care professionals who, unfortunately, deal with child abuse all the time that there are always questions of balance. Should one leave the child in the family or take him or her away? I will contrast a different case. I am not blaming anybody here. A couple of years ago, shortly after I became Minister for Health and Children, a young family was taken into care. I want to quote what was said in this House. The response was "overkill", the family had been "treated brutally through an act of bureaucratic vindictiveness", "these children have unnecessarily been removed from the house" and it was described as a "grossly excessive abuse of authority by social workers". I remember taking those comments seriously and meeting the social work team involved. I cannot but tell the House the passion with which its members felt that in going to court to remove those children they were doing the right thing. Many of them feel they are damned if they do and damned if they do not. That is why decisions about removing children from a family are not made by single individuals but are made in a case conference environment where the expertise of others is brought to the table, and that is as it should be.

This inquiry team will report within six months. Earlier Deputy Brian Hayes mentioned what is broadly called in the media this "right-wing group" which seems to feel that no matter what happens in a family, the children should be left there. We must challenge those who constantly support this point of view, who seem to be more obsessed with unborn children than with those who are born. Health care professionals have to deal with individuals and groups of that kind day in, day out, notwithstanding the unsavoury matters that come in.

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