Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy Troy that the reports we have heard on the removal of the two children from their families are disturbing on a number of levels and join him in welcoming the fact that the children have been returned to their families. I acknowledge the distress this has caused to the children and families concerned. Deputy Troy accepts that the gardaí acted in good faith on the matter. The first lesson that needs to be learned is that nobody should jump to conclusions. We need to establish the facts and, indeed, the answers to the questions raised by Deputy Troy. This is why the Minister for Justice and Equality has asked the Garda Commissioner to prepare a report on the two cases and why the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs has asked the HSE to prepare a report. Both of those reports will go to the Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan. We should see that played through.

I would like to know the nature of the complaints or information brought to the Garda that gave rise in the first place to the visit to the families' homes and how that was interrogated. The question then arises of the seriousness and immediacy of the risk to the health and welfare of the children, which form the circumstances in which a child may be removed from a family setting. I would like to know what immediate and serious threat to the children's health and safety was considered to justify their removal from their families. I would like to know how the decision was made, and by whom, and whether there were alternative ways of dealing with whatever issue had confronted the Garda short of removing the children from their homes and family settings. These are questions that the investigations and reports commissioned by the Ministers, Deputies Shatter and Fitzgerald, will have to address. I do not think any of us should prejudge the answers but we need to get the answers, the information and the reports placed in the hands of the Ombudsman for Children.

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