Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I fail to understand why we would hold back or defer the involvement of the Ombudsman for Children, or any other independent office that would take on the responsibility of investigating these instances. The Ombudsman for Children is an appropriate office whose expertise and focus could be directed on this matter with immediate effect. Let us not cod ourselves. The Garda Síochána and the HSE will carry out their own internal inquiries in any case. Why should we delay? It would inject a greater urgency into both the HSE and Garda Síochána's efforts to explore in full and internally what has happened in these cases.

I appeal to the Minister to follow up on the contacts with the Office of the Ombudsman for Children to initiate her immediate inquiry into this matter. That is what is required given the seriousness of what has taken place. I hope that her remit will go beyond that of investigating the role of the Garda Síochána and the HSE, to include the serious matter of the media's disposition concerning such sections of our wider community in this country today. In this regard, some of what is currently presented as journalism is reprehensible.

I hope the critical questions that we have put on the record will be answered. These concern the issues of reasonable grounds, why the other children were not taken into care, and whether the tests could not have been carried out without removing the children from their homes.

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