Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Government shares the sense of outrage over the findings in the Cloyne report. Such findings are not emerging for the first time; they are part of a sequence in that we have had the Ferns and Murphy reports also. What is involved is a betrayal of trust and of the children who were abused, not supported and ignored. It is a betrayal of the trust that Irish people placed in the church, particularly the Catholic Church and its institutions, over a long period in all their dealings with children. The Government is determined to deal with this issue very effectively.

I will set out the legislative measures that the Government intends to bring forward. The failure to report cases of child sexual abuse to the Garda is the central difficulty identified in the Cloyne report. The Government is determined to have legislation in place to ensure that such a failure to co-operate will have consequences. The Minister for Justice and Equality published yesterday the heads of the Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Crimes against Children and Intellectually Disabled Persons) Bill. These heads can be discussed by the appropriate committee which will deal with the issue of consultation. The Bill will make it an offence to withhold information relating to the commission of a serious offence against a person under the age of 18 or an intellectually disabled person.

For some time, work has been been under way and consultation has been taking place between the Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs on drafting the heads of a national vetting bureau Bill, which will provide a statutory basis for the vetting of applicants for employment and employees working with children. The legislation will provide for the establishment of a national vetting bureau for the collection and exchange of both hard and soft information for vetting purposes. This Bill is being given priority and the Minister for Justice and Equality expects to be able to bring the heads to Government for approval before the end of this month. He intends to refer these to the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality while work continues on the drafting of the legislation.

The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs has received Government approval to place the revised Children First national guidelines on a statutory basis. This will make compliance with the guidelines a statutory obligation and will ensure greater protection of children by strengthening the existing system for reporting and responding to suspected child abuse. It is intended to place a statutory obligation on every organisation working with children to protect and safeguard those children when in their care, including statutory, private, community and voluntary organisations. The legislation will underpin the provisions in Children First. This includes a requirement to share relevant information and to co-operate with other services in the best interests of the child. The legislative requirements therefore extend beyond reporting of suspected abuse and entail a more broad-based approach to the safeguarding of children.

Putting Children First on a statutory basis has been sought for many years and is a recommendation of the implementation plan from the Ryan report. In progressing this legislation, the Government has agreed that a range of sanctions will be developed to address any failure to comply with the Children First provisions. Later this week, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs will publish revised Children First guidance designed to strengthen current arrangements for child protection. It is important that every possible step is taken to ensure full compliance with Children First.

In addition to the proposals to make compliance a statutory obligation, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs will oversee an implementation framework which will set out the responsibilities of each Department and sector working with children. It will include strong emphasis on inspection and the need to provide demonstrable evidence that the guidelines are being properly implemented across all sectors. In the case of the health sector, the Minister proposes to extend the remit of the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, to include oversight of the HSE's child protection services, including the operation of Children First. HIQA will have standards in place by the end of the year, and inspections of the HSE's child protection services will begin early in 2012.

The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs has requested the HSE's recently appointed national director for children and family services to write to HSE staff setting out the HSE's responsibilities on child protection and compliance with the revised Children First guidance including on extra-familial abuse. The strong legal advice to the Government is that section 3 of the Child Care Act 1991 provides sufficient powers to the HSE with regard to its ability to investigate third party or extra-familial child sexual abuse. This position will be set out for staff by the national director to ensure there is no uncertainty on this matter in the HSE.

In addition, the national director has developed an associated child protection and welfare practice handbook to support the implementation of Children First. The two documents will provide clearer direction and support to front line staff working with children. They will clearly set out the respective roles of the statutory agencies responsible for child protection including the HSE and Garda on the handling of complaints of child sexual abuse and are designed to achieve consistent practice throughout the State.

In my capacity as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, I have already expressed concern about the findings in the report with regard to the Vatican which, of course, in addition to being a church authority is also a state which enjoys diplomatic relations with this country. Later today, I will meet the Papal Nuncio to communicate these concerns and views directly to him. There will be a debate in the House on the findings of the report on Cloyne. I understand it is being discussed by the Whips and the latest information I have is that it will be Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the availability of Ministers and spokespersons. The Government is quite happy for the Whips to agree this and to make available whatever time is necessary.

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