Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The report of the national review panel was published yesterday. I have not had a chance to read it yet but I have it and I will certainly read it before the end of the week. These terrible, tragic and appalling events which befell these young women are almost unspeakable and hard for us to even think about or speak about as human beings. They are events, though, that occurred in 2007 and the period before that, and much has happened when it comes to child protection since then. Child protection was not much of a priority for previous Governments. In fairness to my predecessor, Deputy Enda Kenny, he made it a priority by establishing a dedicated Department of Children and Youth Affairs and by taking Tusla out of the HSE and establishing it as a stand-alone agency when it was something of an afterthought in previous times.

Since then, much has been done. Tusla was established as a stand-alone agency separate from the HSE and a Department of Children and Youth Affairs was carved out of the Department of Health and given full Cabinet status. We have had a children's rights referendum and we have acted on that, with meaningful legislation and mandatory reporting brought in not too long ago so that people have to report child abuse when it occurs. That was not the case in the past. When it comes to foster care, and at the heart of this is a foster care case, there were only three social workers looking after the children in foster care in that region at the time. Since then resources have been increased fivefold, by 500%. There are now 15 social workers working with foster care families in that region, making sure that everyone in foster care is assigned to a social worker. Much progress has been made on child protection in recent years, spearheaded by the Minister, Deputy Zappone, and the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, and the former Minister, now MEP Frances Fitzgerald, before that, but there is always more that needs to be done and we acknowledge that. That is why the recommendations of this report will be taken seriously and will be responded to.

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