Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

-----and the dreaded cruelty man, who came in and decided that the children of the poor were lesser beings than those of the middle class and the rich. We should be considering such people. An entire group of people outside the schools also had a responsibility.

I am struck by the at-risk register, which resulted from a case with which I was dealing. I would like to take a look at the current register to see who was on it. I could nearly guarantee the House that they would be the children of the poor. I know of no social worker who would be prepared to put his or her neck on the line and take someone on in court over the at-risk register.

Whistleblowers need to be protected more and we need to keep talking about women in the Magdalen laundries and the mothers, fathers and siblings of the children in question, people who were traumatised, as this letter makes clear. People who feel justified in complaining so as to ensure that children are protected should be protected by the law. The Government has buried the whistleblower legislation in committee and refuses to let it pass all Stages. We can do something.

We can be as sympathetic in the Chamber as we like, but we are still treating the children of the poor differently than we treat the children of other classes. We definitely treat Traveller children differently. In 20 years' time, will people knock on our doors and ask us whether, thanks to the Ryan report, we knew that other children were being treated badly? We know, but we choose to ignore the issue.

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