Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, for being here to listen to us. I, along with my party, will not be supporting this Bill. This Bill is regrettably not about reform. It is the unholy price that Fine Gael is prepared to pay for power, and the cost of it is the undermining of the judicial system.

I will carry on from where Deputy Butler left off. It is possibly off the topic of the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017, but as Fianna Fáil's Front Bench spokesperson for children and youth affairs, it would be negligent of me not to highlight where the Government is failing children. The Government is failing to protect children. Dr. Geoffrey Shannon was before the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs yesterday and he produced the report, more than 500 pages long, of an audit he conducted for An Garda Síochána. The summary of the audit related 91 cases. No different from the cath lab about which Deputy Butler spoke, I speak about the out-of-hours service for children which we do not have countrywide. We only have it in four counties. One cannot get a social care worker after 5 p.m.

Out of the more than 5,000 entries on the PULSE system which Dr. Shannon looked at, there were 91 cases of children being taken under section 12. Section 12 is where An Garda Síochána has to intervene to remove a child. I am conscious there are children in the Gallery listening to this, but it is where parents fail to parent and a complaint is made to An Garda Síochána. Regrettably, when there is no social care worker to make that intervention or assessment, gardaí have to intervene, for which they are not trained. In some cases they are left with no choice but to bring a child back to the Garda station for the night. In some cases they present them to a hospital. In most of these cases, however, the child is returned to the family. In some cases there were repeated returns. One of the reasons cited in most of the reports on these section 12 interventions was cases of alcohol and drug abuse where families could not cope and failed to parent.

The Government is failing wholeheartedly to protect children. The fact we are ramming through a Bill two or three weeks before we have annual leave and while there is a whole list of other priorities for us to address is an unbelievable rejection of children. In terms of the protection of children's rights, this Government has been dragging its heels on key issues and legislation. We have yet to see the Child Care (Amendment) Bill which is supposed to bring much-needed reform to the guardian ad litemservice used in Ireland.

Guardians ad litemact as the voice of the child in courtroom proceedings, and provide a vital service in protecting children at their most vulnerable. The current system used to appoint guardians ad litemas well as the regulation of the overall guardian ad litemsystem is in dire need of reform. There are patchy appointment mechanisms, whereby a child may be appointed more than one different guardian ad litemat different points in any given legal proceeding, or may be denied one for arbitrary reasons. There are no central qualification or selection standards, which means that, while there are many highly qualified and diligent guardians ad litem, the system is wide open to exploitation. In all these cases, children in need of strong representation pay the price. Without this reform, we are failing to ensure children's rights to be heard are protected, thus failing under Article 42 of our own Constitution as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Furthermore, the Minister for Justice and Equality continues to sit, as it were, on the gambling control Bill. I have spoken at length on this Bill and I have asked numerous parliamentary questions about it. The previous Taoiseach told me the reason it was not being addressed was because digitisation moves too fast. He sort of dismissed me. Unfortunately, gambling goes on and, unfortunately, it is all happening online at this time.

Unfortunately children can access it and place a €5 bet wherever they want once they have an online account. If they fail there, they get an enticement to bring them back into the market. I am talking about children of 15 being able to gamble online. That gives them the first sweetener and the first taste of success. All the while the Government has been sitting on its hands since 2013 with what would be very good legislation if it was brought forward. I asked if we could rewrite it and produce something better. My esteemed colleague, Deputy O'Callaghan, said it was very good and that the Government should be allowed to bring it forward. I have begged the Government to bring forward this Bill, but it is refusing to do so.

The industry is asking for this legislation to be introduced. All the while young hurlers, footballers and other sports enthusiasts are gambling hand over fist. Cuan Mhuire is full to the gills with young people who are gambling and getting themselves in debt. Husbands and partners are gambling life savings away. Hospitals are full. The incidence of suicide is at an unmerciful level. One of the factors feeding into it is gambling. It is a hidden secret. When I held a public meeting recently I was told it is something we do not talk about. However, we are prepared to talk about the judicial system. We have no problem bringing legislation on that into the House three weeks before annual leave and we are told it has to be done.

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