Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

The report shows the importance of putting the Children First guidelines on a statutory basis. I urge the Minister of State and the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to ensure that this work is done as quickly as possible. It highlights how our State agencies, which are responsible for protecting children and for ensuring that safeguards are in place so that abuse can be prevented and dealt with, were not working well together in the past and have not been following the Children First guidelines to the full in recent years.

Putting these guidelines on a statutory basis is critical but we cannot just legislate our way out of this and legislate our way towards better child protection practices. We also have to ensure that the resources are put in place. At a time when the Government is cutting the resources of the Garda and at a time when there are additional pressures on our social work system, we need to ensure that the resources and trained personnel are there so that the situations highlighted by the inspectorate's report are dealt with.

I am also disappointed that the publication of this report has not been accompanied by an update from the Government on the 19 recommendations contained within it. The Government has had this report for over 14 months. I would have thought that an item by item update on the 19 recommendations that are part of it would have been an appropriate response. I ask the Minister of State to give more detail on that and to its importance upon the Minister. What does she intend to do to ensure they are being implemented as quickly as possible?

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