Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)

I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on the Bill the primary purpose of which is designed to close an existing loophole in our current law, but it is much more than that. What we are hoping to do will bring us all one step closer to protecting the children of Ireland. We cannot undo the harm of the past but we must put safeguards in place for future vulnerable citizens.

This Bill is one element of a series of legislative measures to protect children and vulnerable persons to whom our Government is committed. It has been drafted to complement the operation of both the Children First Bill and the national vetting Bill. These initiatives represent a significant development in the legislative framework governing child protection in Ireland.

Reports such as the Ryan report, the Murphy report and, more recently, the Cloyne report have given this country a litany of shocking revelations, stories and images none of us can forget. There is, therefore, a compelling argument for closing the current loophole in the law. In doing so, the Bill aims to better protect children and vulnerable adults from serious offences including sexual offences. There is no question that this Bill has big boots to fill, high expectations to meet and vulnerable citizens to protect. In short, we need to get it right.

There has been much comment in recent years on the horrors of institutional and clerical abuse. While I support the Bill and its intentions, I am concerned that it might criminalise families. We cannot escape the awful fact that most abusehere occurs within families. It must be recognised also that families may and do act in a self protecting way by not disclosing abuse.

Some truths are hard to acknowledge, but they must be all the same. Every citizen has a moral duty to report child abuse. People did not do so in the past partly due to a motivation to protect the family, and the bone fide interests of the family. The Bill requires the parent or guardian to act in the best bone fide interests of the child or vulnerable person. If we are to get that right it is crucial that this legislation clearly defines what is in the best bone fide interests of the child because my interpretation of it as a mother and somebody else's interpretation of it as a parent or neighbour might be entirely different. It is crucial that we clearly define it.

In the midst of the rush to report, the interests of the child - the victim - must still be paramount. In the Bill, children under the age of 14 will have no rights in the reporting of their abuse. These children are already victims and we should not make them victims all over again. That child will have a family, and it is not in isolation that all of this must be taken into consideration when preparing the legislation. The family could be left ostracised and stigmatised. These are issues we must confront and we must have measures in place which support rather than divide families already in a dire situation. The repercussions of reporting abuse are huge and cannot be underestimated. We need to have adequate systems and supports in place for families which may well be torn apart in the process of reporting abuse.

The introduction of mandatory reporting requirements within a jurisdiction tends to increase the community's awareness of child abuse. This is a good thing. However, if there are inadequate resources available, it may result in services being overwhelmed. We all have a duty to inform, but as I have already said, public opinion has been influenced by revelations of abuse and subsequent cover-ups by the likes of the Catholic Church. Understandably, this has led to a preoccupation with the matter of reporting. Whether legislating for reporting is the most sensible approach to enhancing child protection services is open to question, particularly as it has been well established in other jurisdictions that criminalising the failure to report has led to unintended outcomes. Among these is the disproportionate level of funding required to manage the intake of reports, with consequent reduction in the resources available to provide services for vulnerable children.

There is an over-arching, positive obligation on the State to protect children from abuse, including when this abuse is carried out by private individuals. Putting in place an effective system to achieve this end requires a wide range of measures. The Office of the Ombudsman for Children has welcomed the Bill, but the Ombudsman has also made substantial recommendations with which I agree. These include that all necessary resources be put in place to ensure that social work departments can respond effectively to any increase in reporting consequent upon the general scheme; that an effective system of monitoring, for example, by the social health services inspectorate, SSI, or HIQA, is put in place to monitor the effects of the general scheme; and that an independent review of the effects on child protection practice is required to be undertaken no later than three years after implementation. This should be informed by inspection by HIQA or the SSI.

This Bill will only be useful if it makes our children safer. An independent review would measure whether this has been achieved. It is worth noting that following the experience of its

implementation in New South Wales, it was recently decided to remove criminal sanction for breach of the duty to report.

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