Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for selecting this issue, following the publication of the report of the child death review panel yesterday. The report made for harrowing reading, showing that 196 children in the care of the State or known to the State and the HSE since 2000 died, 112 of whom died from unnatural causes. At the outset I commend the work of the report's authors, Geoffrey Shannon and Norah Gibbons, for the immense amount of time and effort they put into completing such a thorough report. They got to the nub of each story about these children, many of whom met a very unfortunate and untimely end. I would also like to acknowledge my former colleague and Minister of State, Barry Andrews, for initiating the report, as well as the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs for publishing the report yesterday without redaction.

There are very important lessons we must learn from this report. We must reform our child protection system so every possible step is taken by the State to ensure that those vulnerable children receive the services they require. Reform is required to deliver that, but the resources must also be delivered so that the capacity exists in our child protection system to meet the needs as they arise. To that end, I ask that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs look at reinstating the exemption to the public service recruitment embargo that had applied to social workers in the area of child and family services. Over the course of the last year, we have gone from a system whereby all those positions were being backfilled to a system where it is being left to the discretion of the HSE. In that time, we have gone from a situation where 93.9% of children in the care of the State had an assigned social worker to a situation in March 2012 where that dropped to under 92%.

The Government must move to introduce mandatory aftercare. In the report, we read that 27 of the 32 children in aftercare died by unnatural causes. That shows the danger and difficulty that many of those children experience once they leave the care of the State. It also shows how the State is failing those children by not ensuring that the aftercare is provided to them.

There is a recommendation in the report to remove the in camera restrictions, whereby reporting cases involving child protection is not allowed. We must ensure the recommendation is fully implemented. It is only by shining a light on our child protection system that we can ensure the type of cases highlighted in this report do not happen again.

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