Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Step by step and piece by piece, the Government is addressing gaping holes in the protection of children and vulnerable adults. Yesterday the Taoiseach announced a referendum to protect children. Thankfully, 20 years after the retired former justice Catherine McGuinness advised this reform, the Government is now giving the people a choice to give children a voice in our Constitution, and at this moment the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, is publishing the wording of the referendum. Past Governments have procrastinated on the children's referendum for 20 years and many little voices went unheard as a result. Previous Governments have deferred and have not put in place the children's referendum as should have been done.

To return the Bill before us, it is further evidence that the Government values our young and vulnerable. It is an immense pity that it took the highlighting of terrible abuse of hundreds of Irish children to get us here. In terms of saying what goes on behind closed doors should stay there, we should all be active citizens. We should all actively care about those around us. That is what separates us from animals.

I would like to praise two aspects of the Bill. It allows for specified information to be taken into account. This goes beyond the current system. The Bill sets out procedures to allow soft information to be used. This will further protect our children. Organisations working with or providing services to children and vulnerable people have called for this to be done for many years. The Government is listening and, more importantly, acting on their concerns.

I am delighted the Bill will enforce criminal sanctions on those who do not properly use the new vetting system. Thousands of people are working with our young and vulnerable who have not been checked by the Garda. At a meeting of the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection in July, I was shocked to learn that there are still 42,000 teachers registered with the Teaching Council who have still not been vetted. I stress that this is not the fault of the teaching profession but rather because of the historical backlog of applicants seeking to be vetted. I ask the Minister that those in the teaching profession who have not been vetted be vetted as quickly as possible. This will ensure our children are safe. It will ensure the teachers' professionalism and their characters are not impugned due to delays in vetting which occur through no fault of their own.

Negative side-effects of improved vetting have been raised. As Deputy Finian McGrath said last night, abusers and paedophiles will not go away. Predators do not go away. Fears have been aired that with better vetting in our schools and sporting organisations, increased Internet grooming may occur as a result. Undoubtedly social policy and legislation have not kept pace with technological advances. Technology makes every day easier, but it also makes the lives of many scary, lonely, bullied and isolated. Parents and school authorities need to be more aware. They need to be vigilant and take precautions to ensure children are protected from cyber stalkers. We as legislators need to do our utmost to protect our youth from the harmful and negative impact of not only Internet grooming but also sites that promote violent sexual acts as desirable or that promote anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and cyber bullying. The world has advanced hugely in the last ten years. Children and teenagers today face different challenges and problems and we as adults, parents and legislators need to face up to this reality and start being more proactive about their welfare.

See this speech in context