Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I would like an explanation from the Minister. If she cannot give it here, could I get an explanation as to why they were not grouped? They should have been grouped.

For a child to be taken from their parents, which is the most extreme course of action, the child must be assessed by qualified professionals such as social workers or psychiatrists as being at imminent risk of harm. The Minister, as Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, should take this seriously because there is no evidence and I do not believe any evidence will be brought forward that there was any assessment that this child was at imminent risk of harm. Since when did gardaí act as social workers and make those assessments? The only thing we have in the public domain as evidence of why they acted as they did was the fact that a child had different colour hair and eyes from their parents. The last time I looked, that was not a crime and, therefore, the Garda had no role in this whatsoever, or is it acceptable for gardaí to make an assessment on whether a child is at imminent risk of harm? Qualified psychiatrists often wait six months after they have given an assessment that a child is in danger and they cannot get the State to act, yet here the State police acted to seize a child - to kidnap a child, in effect - when no qualified professionals had made an assessment that this child was in danger.

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