Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

It is a year since this House last debated the Ryan report but it feels much more recent. Why is that? It is because over the period of a year one could reasonably have expected significant improvements in our child protection measures. Instead, we are once again mired in reports of gross negligence on the part of the State and the grotesque situation where the State is not entirely sure how many children died while the State was in loco parentis.

The State seems unwilling to learn lessons from the past. For example, a report from the Committee of Public Accounts in 1990 made a series of recommendations on the co-ordination of child care services among Departments and State agencies to form an operational strategy to address issues concerning children in care. Some 20 years later, we still do not have such a strategy in place.

My colleagues have already discussed this issue in its national context so I will confine myself to two issues. First, the ongoing exclusion of those who were sexually abused in primary schools from any redress scheme is a national disgrace. It is immoral of the State to abdicate its responsibilities for school children. In the strict legal sense, boards of management were responsible for school management but these boards were made up of voluntary local people who rarely had the knowledge or wherewithal necessary to cope with sexually deviant clergy. I am not excusing boards that stood idly by, merely contrasting the situation of a voluntary committee often dominated by an authoritarian parish priest with a powerful Department with access to all the best practice manuals and legal advice it desired. Where complaints were made directly to the Department, the Department should have taken control of the situation. It failed and, decades later, the Department continues to wash its hands of the unpleasant side of school management. It decides on teaching standards and the curriculum and issues circulars laying down the law on almost every aspect of school life. However, when a child is abused in a school, the Department runs a mile, claiming the matter is none of its business.

The victims of Offaly teacher Mr. Brander are included in the Ryan report yet they are excluded from the redress scheme. The litany of abuse detailed in Chapter 14 leads to the conclusion that the State cannot persist in washing its hands of responsibility for the abuse perpetrated by teachers on its payroll. The approach to victims of abuse in primary schools must be changed. We need legislative change in this area to close the legal loophole that is allowing the Department of Education and Skills to shirk its responsibilities.

Chapter 14 of the Ryan report also highlights major anomalies in the way files were maintained by the Department. Has the Minister of State contacted the Tánaiste to provide a report on the extent to which filing protocols and record-keeping deficiencies have been addressed? I recently requested information by way of parliamentary question on how many teachers have been convicted of sexual offences in respect of children in their care but the information could not be provided. The Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Justice and Law Reform, the Courts Service and the CSO do not keep such records. Keeping complete and accurate files in regard to its teachers is the very least that can be expected of the Department of Education and Skills.

The second issue I wish to highlight relates to the numerous problems faced by foster parents in the Laois-Offaly constituency. Services previously provided for parents have been withdrawn, meaning foster parents are incurring additional costs without compensation from the State. Social worker services are inadequate and social workers are stretched to the limits. Consequently, not all foster children have care plans within an acceptable timeframe. Social workers are unable to give foster children the care they need. The Minister of State said he was frontloading the appointments but I wonder how many will be allocated to the former midland health board area.

Foster parents are unsung heroes in our community. Their contribution should be recognised and valued. Obviously, foster care must also be carefully regulated to ensure children are protected. We must legislate to provide that foster parents can straightforwardly adopt foster children in appropriate circumstances. We must ensure the foster care service is nourished and resourced and that people are made aware of the opportunity to act as foster parents. Placing children with a foster family is far more satisfactory than dumping them in a hostel or other facility and the litany of tales of children dying while in State care supports that approach.

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