Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I agree with Deputy Flanagan. The point is this is the way in which members of the public see our child protection services. Child protection cases are not reported in newspapers because of privacy associated with section 31 of the Child Care Act. The only way we can see it is in this type of reporting, so it is extremely important it is done correctly. As we saw in the tragic circumstances surrounding what is commonly known as the Roscommon case, the High Court took great care in ensuring the manner of its publication struck the right balance between the public interest, which Deputy Flanagan says he represents, and the importance balancing right of the families to their privacy and the continuing care often associated with families which must deal with the tragedy after the event.

Striking the right balance is at the core of the issue. It is easy to feed into the narrative of secrecy a lack of transparency and an attempt to conceal information when the truth is that we are striving to strike the right balance. That is why we set up the independent review group and the group chaired by Dr. Helen Buckley. This is so that in future there would be a very clear standard for reporting in this area and members of the public can have confidence that the HSE is not inspired by a desire to conceal information but rather to get that information into the public domain in a way that strikes the balance I have referred to and which the High Court took such great care in trying to achieve.

In terms of numbers, the HSE has transferred documentation and the review group hopes to have examination of these files completed, with a report by next month. To date, 185 files have been transferred and another 11 are in the process of being handed over following a further trawl of case files. There is a continuing process which I would not describe as a case where there is a reluctance to act. Clearly everybody wants to comply with the law as it applies to the transfer of these very sensitive case files to allow the review group to complete its work.

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