Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

One of the central recommendations of the report published yesterday by the commission of inquiry into child abuse was that "management at all levels should be accountable for the quality of services and care". While the conclusions of this report were that even if the services had operated properly, the lives of the people concerned may not have been saved, nobody knows this for certain. There were major failings within the services, such as a lack of communication, a lack of availability of professionals, and wrong judgments made. The very out-of-hours service on which the Minister of State now wants to rely, whereby gardaí are to make judgments as to whether children should be taken temporarily into care on an emergency basis or not is contradicted by the report, which states that the gardaí did not regard themselves as qualified to make that assessment. That was the reason given for the drive-by of the house of this tragic family by the gardaí who visited the house.

For the Minister of State to suggest that he had no obligation to publish this report is to deny the fact that he is accountable to this House for children's services and social services that are applied to protect the welfare of children. Is the Minister of State telling this House that no matter what happens with regard to the areas that fall within his remit, he is not accountable? Will he accept that it was his predecessor and this Government who chose to make this a non-statutory inquiry? A statutory inquiry could have been held within the framework of the new legislation enacted during Michael McDowell's time as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. It would have created no difficulty. In so far as there are legal difficulties, the redacted portion of the report, furnished by individuals in respect of whom some findings were made and allowing them to comment on it, addressed any such legal difficulties.

The Minister of State's response is an institutional response obsessed with protecting reputations, with no concept that any State employee, any State agency or even the Minister of State himself are accountable to this House for the manner in which our social services and child care services are run.

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