Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I share Deputy Martin's sympathy, as I am sure the House does, on learning of the tragic circumstances surrounding the fire in Clondalkin last night. Obviously, our thoughts are with the relatives and friends of the woman and the two young children. The scene is sealed off and a technical examination will take place today. The Garda has appealed for witnesses and I am sure people will help in that regard. Go ndéana Dia trócaire ar a n-anamacha dílse.

I listened to some of the debate on the Grace case. As I said yesterday, with this inquiry we will get to the bottom of what happened to Grace. The State makes a habit of talking about the past and legacy issues, but this involves the present, not the past. Now, we must and will act on it. Their personal pain cannot be anonymised, and it can become almost anonymised as a public issue. It is the pain of Grace and her mother, two good women. One of them gave up the most precious thing in her life, her child, to the care of the State because she believed she was doing right by her daughter. When the television is switched off and the news of the day moves on, that pain does not cease. Conor Dignam and the chair of the commission of investigation, Marjorie Farrelly, have been consulted on the terms of reference, which allow for another phase of investigation.

I commend the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, on his diligence in following through with this. He has withdrawn the motion for consultation. Let us be crystal clear about this - what we seek is an allowance for phase one and for phase two, to take into account others who were in that foster home and the other issues the Deputy has raised. If we are to have a commission of investigation let it be conducted in such a way that it covers the issues people have legitimately raised. I expect the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, following consultation with all the Members, to return to the House tomorrow with amended terms of reference which set out explicitly and clearly what we want in setting up the commission of investigation, that is, to have phases one and two which will allow for the issues that have been raised to be dealt with by the commission. I hope that we can deal with this comprehensively and effectively in the consultations that take place today. There is no reason that we should have to delay the process of getting the commission of investigation up and running. However, I agree with the Deputy that it is important to be crystal clear that we are not only dealing with the Grace case, which has been the subject of statutory investigations, and then moving on at some time in the future. We must make it clear that there is a phase one and phase two in the context of clarifying the terms of reference to deal with these issues.

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