James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputy Shatter, whom I thank for affording me the time and for bringing this motion to the House.

Yet again, this country has been shaken to the core by a shocking case of child abuse that took place over a protracted period of time. What makes this case so disturbing is that relevant authorities were made aware of it and that the children were on an at-risk register, yet the terrible abuse inflicted on them was not avoided.

As a GP, I know child abuse can be difficult to detect and very often comes to light when those children become adults, having survived the horror of what they have endured, and manage to build their self-esteem again to the point where they feel that they can complain and seek justice for themselves. The whole point of a child protection programme is to identify people at risk and intervene early to prevent or to at least stop ongoing abuse. We must accept that we failed miserably on this occasion.

The Minister, Deputy Barry Andrews's, acknowledgement that society failed these children conveniently ignores the failure of his Government and the HSE to protect these children and the least I would have expected was an apology from him to these children on behalf of the Government. The awful thing about this is that we have had terrible cases of abuse in the past, to some of which the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, alluded. These have been followed by outpourings of sympathy for the family and the victims. We also had investigations and reports which made recommendations but were then shelved and not acted upon. We had the Kilkenny incest case and the Kelly Fitzgerald case to mention but two, yet we find ourselves here again.

There is a recurring theme here. The health service generally, as well as in this area specifically, has a long history of investigations and reports being compiled and then left to gather dust on a shelf, never to be implemented. I share my colleague, Deputy Shatter's, astonishment at the Minister of State with responsibility for children, Deputy Barry Andrews. I remind this Chamber that this very Minister of State told us before Christmas that, as Minister of State with responsibility for children, he did not feel that the vaccination of children against cancer was an issue for him. I remind the Chamber that this is the Minister of State who had presented to him last July the report on the handling of abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne and not alone did not read it, but passed it out of his hands, as quickly as he could, like a hot potato, and on to the Health Service Executive. This is the Minister of State who sits before us here, having admitted that the first he heard of this case or anything about it was in the media a couple of weeks ago.

Strike one was the Minister of State's attitude to vaccination; strike two was his handling of the Diocese of Cloyne report; and strike three is his handling of this case. This pattern of commissioning reports and then ignoring them is replicated throughout the Health Service and we only have to look to the history of reports and recommendations in the north east to verify this. If the Minister of State's job is not to oversee his Department, then what is his function? I will say no more on that — the facts speak for themselves.

The main thrust of this motion is to seek that this inquiry be independent, and clearly it is not. While we have excellent people in appointees such as Ms Norah Gibbons and Ms Leonie Lunny, we have also on the inquiry board two members of the HSE. Therefore, this is not an independent inquiry and cannot be construed as such. The days of the HSE investigating itself are long gone. Nobody will have belief in it. If it is necessary, as the director of the PCC said in his statement, to have members of the HSE to hand to navigate the complexities of the HSE, which is an astonishing admission of the chaos that presides in that organisation, then by all means make these people available to the inquiry but not as an integral part of the board.

Members of the extended family have asked that the HSE should not be on the board of inquiry as they have no faith in it, and the children's alliance today stated clearly that it opposes the presence of HSE members on the board. In a letter to the Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, it states that the investigation team is not independent; the terms of reference are too narrow; the team does not have the power to compel individuals to give evidence or to procure documentation; and contrary to the statement of the Minister for Health and Children, the team does not have independent legal support. The parts of the motion outlining the areas where the terms of reference need expansion are self-evident and it is important that all who are involved and engaged with this issue play their roles.

This is not intended to be a blame game but to find out why this happened and why it continued when people had raised concerns. Deputy Naughten mentioned that members of the extended family were among the first to raise concerns about this issue. Why did it go on for so long?

This requires finding the weaknesses in our system and putting in place procedures to prevent their recurrence. It proposes an independent inquiry that will make recommendations resulting in protocols that will be put in place and acted upon. We must not allow this report to be thrown on a shelf like so many others because if that happens we will have failed our children once more and there will be little point in our beating our breasts when the inevitable happens again a year from now.

I commend the motion to the House.

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