Dáil debates

Tuesday, 10 July 2012

2:00 pm

Photo of Frances FitzgeraldFrances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)

I join the Deputy in thanking the authors of the report for their work. It is pretty devastating to read a report on the deaths of children. In this House just two years ago there was a lack of clarity even on the figures. With this report we now clearly have increased transparency. Clearly the kinds of reforms needed in this area will not take place overnight and a great deal of work remains to be done. There are significant legacy issues in putting the child and family protection services on the kind of basis we would want to see and that is very clearly illustrated in the report. The question of interagency work needs to be taken very seriously not just by my Department but by a number of other Departments and by a range of agencies as well as statutory agencies. That is a very big challenge.

I have already started discussions on implementing the recommendations and I intend to continue discussions over the summer on the development of the child death independent review mechanism. Yesterday I met representatives of HIQA and began discussions on roles it might play. I will also meet representatives of other relevant bodies. I want to develop a mechanism. In many ways very good work is already being done by Dr. Helen Buckley and her team. The HSE and Government had obviously established a service. The implementation group suggested a new way to develop that independent child death review mechanism and I intend to examine that and see how its recommendations can be implemented. I have already outlined that the child and family support agency legislation will deal with the after-care issues that arise from the report. I have already started work on a number of the areas. We need the database I outlined to the Deputy in order to streamline the various recommendations. We have the implementation of the recommendations from the Ryan report, which is progressing. I am confident that each of the recommendations will be progressed in the coming months.

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