Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I welcome the fact that we are having this debate. I commend the national review panel on completing this report and on examining this most serious of issues. While I have some points to make which challenge or criticise the Government's action in respect of child protection, I have no doubt about the Minister's commitment to it. In her speech, the Minister was frank in stating she is trying to do her best but that she is labouring under the financial circumstances and constraints with which the State is faced. This is the real issue. With the best will in the world, the Minister can and will try to do her best to improve standards of child protection. However, unless there is backing, support and resources for doing so and unless these are connected to addressing the many factors, including societal and economic factors which contribute to the problems facing children, it is difficult to see how one could make headway.

Deputy Ó Caoláin's remarks were important. The starting point for discussing this issue is to recognise the absolutely abysmal failure of the State to protect children from abuse, neglect and poverty over a long period. It is an incredible indictment not so much of this Government, but of previous successive Governments that despite report, outcry and scandal relating to the abuse and neglect of children and the failure of the State to discharge its responsibility to children, we do not yet have the legislative protection necessary for our children nor do we have the resources and services necessary to protect children to the degree to which they should be protected. If that is the general historical situation the report, dealing with a short period between March and December 2010, is shocking.

I do not know all of the circumstances but I find it shocking that one child who is known to the HSE and public services dies every month from a drug overdose, suicide or homicide. I do not know the circumstances of the other deaths but those facts are bad enough. It is a continuation of the failure of the State to look after our children.

It goes beyond the children who were known to the HSE or services. In the debate on the Private Members' motion tabled by Deputy O'Sullivan last week there was a general acknowledgement that report after report confirmed mental health problems, suicide, drug and alcohol problems have risen dramatically over the past few years. While they are all complex issues which have multifactorial influences, clearly there is a strong connection, as all reports and studies suggest, between those issues and the effects of the recession, austerity, unemployment, poverty and social dislocation in our society. Those problems disproportionately impact on children.

This week Barnardos indicated 40,000 more children are now living in consistent poverty, bringing the total figure to 90,000. That is appalling. The most vulnerable in our society are suffering from the impact of the economic crisis and austerity, for which they have no responsibility, visited upon them by the Government, IMF and EU. The failure of the State could not be more serious. What the Minister can do about that is limited.

Unless we address the unemployment crisis we will not solve the problems of, poverty, which in most cases is related to unemployment, and housing. Housing is a facto in almost all the cases of distressed situations I come across involving children and families. Current policies will make the situation worse. Local authorities are abandoning their responsibility to provide housing for people and outsourcing it to other bodies. The anecdotal evidence in my constituency of what that means is becoming apparent.

I received a telephone call this morning from a vulnerable woman with three young children. She is living in a property owned by the council but run by a voluntary agency. Nobody knows who is responsible for the property. It flooded and all the fuses began to spark, creating a major fire hazard. She telephoned the council which told her it has nothing to do with it and that she should contact the agency, which placed her in emergency accommodation. A day later when the sockets began to fume and smoke she called the fire brigade which indicated the situation was serious and that she should have been removed from the property immediately. Nobody knows who is responsible. She has a history of vulnerability; I will not go into her personal details.

As I am sure the Minister is aware, there are many other examples where it is difficult to determine who is responsible for what, everybody says they do not have the resources to deal with problems and the buck is passed. I do not see how we can resolve any of these problems without resources. We are losing social workers because of the embargo. Family counsellors, therapists and multidisciplinary teams are needed to deal with difficult and complex situations and the underlying problems of poverty and unemployment.

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