Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

How will the different agencies know of them? About whom or what are these blanked out recommendations? Whatever justification there may be for part of the narrative in the report being blacked out, perhaps to protect individuals or whatever, there is no case whatever I can think of as to why the recommendations should be blacked out. The recommendations at the very least need to be published in order that we know where we stand on them.

The Taoiseach said that the chief executive of the Health Service Executive can have the report. He did not say whether he has already seen or being supplied with it. Can the chief executive officer of the HSE do anything about the report, if it is privileged? If there are issues that require attention within the HSE, issues of a managerial nature which require to be progressed within the HSE arising from the report, how does the chief executive officer of the HSE do that, if he is the only person who can see the report and if he cannot discuss it with the people directly involved? This is nonsensical. This is a cover-up of some kind. I do not know what kind it is, but it is not acceptable. It is something that should be put right.

The Taoiseach did not answer the question I asked him about the out-of-hours service. We have a problem in this country, which is adverted to in this report where, as I understand it, a garda superintendent attempted to make contact with the child care services of the HSE over the weekend but found those services did not activate until after the weekend. I have had reports on that problem in regard to different cases, admittedly not as serious or tragic as this one, where gardaí, those in schools, people who are active in the community and sometimes families who have needed to get the assistance of the social services of the HSE have not been able to do so because they are not available out-of-hours, including at weekends. That problem must be addressed.

In respect of families who are at risk, sometimes the issues that arise and put families and children at risk arise much later in the evening than 5 p.m. and arise over the weekend period for a variety of reasons, which everybody in the House who has any understanding of this area of life knows full well. There is no service available at those times. That must be addressed urgently.

One need only imagine the consequences if the fire service operated on that basis, that it only operated from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and not at night nor at the weekend, of if the Garda Síochána operated on the basis of providing a service from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. We are concerned here with children and their protection and the services which are supposed to be there to provide protection and support for families who are at risk. This service is closed from 5 p.m. on a Friday until 9 a.m. on a Monday. It appears, as much from the blacked out sections of this report as from what is contained in it, that is what happened here.

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