Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I understand the Government has concluded that legislation is required to allow the HSE files of the cases of children who died in care to be handed over to the investigation by Ms Norah Gibbons and Mr. Geoffrey Shannon. Why is the Government still not in a position to say how many children died in the care of the State over the last ten years?

When did the Department ask the HSE to hand over the files to the two investigators? The Taoiseach says the HSE, on Monday last, raised the legal difficulty which the Government then considered. Was that the first response given by the HSE to the request that the files be handed over? What, if any, response was the HSE giving between the time it was first asked for the files and last Monday morning? Has the HSE told the Taoiseach, or the Minister of State with responsibility for children, how many files are involved? It is one thing to say the files cannot be handed over for legal reasons but quite a different thing that we still do not know how many are involved. A Sunday newspaper reported that there may be as many as 200 files. Yesterday, I expressed some surprise at this figure and pointed out that it shows a level of mortality among children in care which is ten to 12 times the rate in the wider child population. That would be an extraordinary state of affairs. What also surprises me is that since that story was published last Sunday, I have not heard anyone, in the HSE or in Government, challenging the figure of 200.

When did the Department ask for the files, how many are there and what response was the HSE giving before last Monday about the numbers involved?

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