Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome the passage of this Bill. As the Minister will be aware, the Fianna Fáil Party has supported this very important legislation since its inception. As we approach the centenary of the 1916 Rising and having placed the children's rights referendum before the country almost three years ago, it is important we enshrine the rights of children in the Constitution.

The main element of the Bill will make the reporting of child protection concerns a statutory duty. We must learn from the mistakes of the past and ensure that never again will any person or institution place his, her or its good above the interests or well-being of children. In welcoming the Bill, I should point out that many of its provisions could have been strengthened. After four years of gestation, the legislation does not go far enough in applying sanctions to people who fail to report child protection concerns. This amounts to a watering down of the legislation originally promised by the Department, albeit when the Minister's predecessor was in situ. Initially, the Bill provided for significant and robust sanctions to be applied to persons who failed to comply with its provisions. For my part, I sought to strengthen the legislation during the various Stages in the Dáil by proposing amendments that would have made it a punishable offence not to report child abuse concerns or for a provider to continue to provide services to children without a child safety certificate, having been on the register of non-compliance for 30 days. These were constructive proposals but the Minister did not believe it necessary to accept them. I will hold him to the commitment he gave at the time to keep the matter under strict review.

While legislation is critical, the policies adopted and the budgetary decisions and changes made have a direct impact on the legislation. It is good that we had a referendum on children's rights, that the rights of the child are being enshrined in legislation and that this Bill will be enacted today. However, we cannot ignore the simple fact that in 2013, 11.7% of children, or one child in eight, were living in consistent poverty and 37% of children were experiencing deprivation. In 2014, UNICEF published a study on the impact of recession on children which ranked Ireland 37th out of 41 countries in a league table measuring relative changes in child poverty. We were close to the bottom of the list.

The Taoiseach alluded to the good work being done by social workers and care workers and no one could take that away from those professionals. However, the Minister will be aware from our discussions on Committee Stage and from previous debates that child care and social workers have been put to the pin of their collars. The most recent report by the independent Ombudsman for Children, Dr. Niall Muldoon, reveals serious deficits in the child protection and care systems administered by Tusla. His audit found that last year Tusla managed to deal in a timely manner with only one fifth of all reports of child abuse. By any measure, this is a gross systems failure on the part of the Minister and the management of Tusla. The Child and Family Agency was established with the purpose of strengthening the child protection system in place under the Health Service Executive. We now know that the agency is failing to investigate child abuse claims immediately.

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