Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The second issue relates to the State's capacity to protect the rights of children. Many people following this story see the marked contrast between, on the one hand, last week's revelation by the children's Ombudsman of the HSE's failure to intervene over several years after a child made multiple allegations of rape or another report of 4,100 children who had been assessed by the HSE as needing intervention but having to wait more than three months for that intervention and, on the other, the heavy arm of the State in these cases. This is troubling. I do not wish these cases to undermine the State's capacity to protect our children, which is a fundamental role. However, there is a great amount of public disquiet about whether the State can move in willy-nilly and in an arbitrary fashion to take people's children from them. Will the Tánaiste categorically state that this is not the case?

The third issue relates to the nature of the proposed investigations. It is not satisfactory that the Garda would investigate the Garda or that the HSE would investigate the HSE.

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