Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I disagree with Deputy McConalogue. I have given the strongest reason, that it is already in legislation. One does not have to repeat it. When one has strong legislation in place to deal with a particular issue, that is, equality and non-discrimination, it is not the practice to repeat it in new legislation. That is the reality of the situation.

However, I take the point Deputy Ó Caoláin has made, that often there is failure in implementation. Of course, that is the purpose of the new agency as far as children at risk are concerned, to ensure that the focus is on children and on promoting the welfare of those children who have been failed by the State in the past.

What we have now done is put in place an implementation plan to ensure that we do not repeat what happened in the past and that we operate in a different way. It will not be done overnight. There is a bad legacy in this regard. There have been changes, but there is a great deal of work to do to get to the kind of national standards in the delivery of these services that we need to. The way we have framed this legislation and the way we have brought the agency together, and the various services that provide for children, is what will make the most difference to how children receive these services.

We have in legislation already the principles of equality and non-discrimination. We now have a mechanism to implement the services in a way that they have not been implemented previously and that is what will really make the difference.

What we are passing here today in the Bill is an implementation of the Government decision to have a separate agency so that we can deal with those failures of the past and begin to deliver services in a much better and more cohesive way to the children who need them most, particularly those 6,000 children who are in care but also those children at risk in the community. There are 40,000 referrals every year. There is an increasing number of cases of neglect being referred to the services around the country. There are 1,500 cases of confirmed child sexual abuse every year.

We have serious ongoing child protection issues in this country. These have to be faced up to not only by the Child and Family Agency but also by communities and everybody will have a part to play in ensuring that where children are vulnerable there is intervention so that they get a second chance.

See this speech in context