Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

This is not an inter-party political issue, but it is a political issue nevertheless because it can only be addressed by the best performance of politics in learning the lessons of the past. It is essential that we know the detail of the particular reports currently unexposed. It is perhaps irrelevant at this point if, for whatever reason, the identities must be withheld. What matters is that we have the facts in regard to the care regime that applied for each of these young people, tragic cases that they all must have been, that lessons are learnt and that from those lessons best practice is implemented.

I go back to the point that it is an outrage that elected Members of this House - I do not refer only to the Opposition benches, because I have heard the same remarks privately expressed by backbenchers of the Government parties - should meet with such great difficulty in trying to ascertain factual information from within Departments, particularly the Department of Health and Children. There can be no better example of that than this case.

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