Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I would have thought that information on children dying in the care of the State would not take the State agency responsible months to compile. It should be at the top of the agenda. I am reminded of what the Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, stated here on 4 March when we were discussing the Tracey Fay case. He stated that he was guided by the principle that the State should act in loco parentis, not just in the limited understanding of the Latin phrase in the legalistic context, but to truly take the place of the parent and to provide support to the most vulnerable children in the State. He referred to acting in loco parentis.

Whatever the State has been doing in the case of children who have died in its care, it does not appear to have been acting in loco parentis. If any set of parents acted as negligently as the State would appear to have acted here, to the extent that the Taoiseach does not know the number of children who have died in the State's care, the State would move to take those children into care from the parents concerned. What happens to children for whom the State does not provide the care that should be provided by parents? That is the issue to be addressed here. An issue of State negligence arises. The extent of the negligence is such that the Taoiseach is not even in a position to advise on it and he is awaiting some validation exercise that must be undertaken by the HSE before he can inform us of the number of children that have died in the State's care in the past ten years. Clearly, this is a case of negligence, dysfunctionality in the HSE and of the tail wagging the dog as far as the relationship between the HSE and the Minister of State with responsibility for children is concerned.

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