Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The real fitting memorial to those dead children would be resolve to ensure that, in the future, people will not look back on today and say the State did not act comprehensively. There are effectively 2,500 homeless children. I mean these remarks sincerely. With regard to mental health, there is not a Deputy who does not have a file containing the cases of a number of children with mental health challenges who are facing inordinately long waiting times to gain access to child and adolescent mental health services. We know that families of children with autism cannot avail of respite anymore. I have visited many disability centres and service providers. They are really frustrated beyond comprehension. They have essentially given up on getting any resources to deal with families who need respite and other services. We know about the therapies for children but they are not happening. Deputy Thomas Byrne will be tabling a motion tonight on the National Educational Psychological Service. There are many potential scandals arising right now and we should not be waiting for some future period or generation to shine a light on them in 20 years. It will simply be too late. There will be no point in shock and horror in 25 years if the State could have intervened now in respect all the services I have outlined, the absence of social workers, in particular, and the under-resourcing of Tusla in respect of young children and teenagers in real danger of physical and mental harm because of their particular circumstances.

There is an opportunity – I hate using that phrase – for a once-in-a-generation paradigm shift and to ask, before we do anything in the next budget, whether we can comprehensively deal with services for children. This would be an appropriate response in addition to everything else we must do in response to the revelations in Tuam.

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