Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish I could be as absolutely confident. The Minister mentioned accountability and transparency. They are not in evidence. As the Minister said, Tusla has been in place for five years now. As I said at the time, many officials were simply hived off from the HSE and left to their own devices. Parents deal with Tusla, An Garda Síochána and the courts by themselves. The Alliance of Birth Mothers Campaigning for Justice is a group that has come together because its members are not getting a fair crack of the whip. They mean business.

The Minister says there is a lot more to be done. That is true. I would like to be half as confident as she is that Tusla is fit for purpose. Quite clearly it is not. I speak to members of the Garda on a regular basis. All week long they deal with cases with Tusla and social workers. At 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. on Friday evenings, the social workers call An Garda and say it is the problem of the Garda now. Is that proper communication? The report found that there is not proper communication with An Garda Síochána. These are the statutory bodies that should be dealing with this. I meet superintendents who tell me this all the time. They get a phone call and the cases land in their laps. They have limited resources. They might spend all week dealing with Tusla and its officials but nobody is available from 4 p.m. on Friday evening until Monday morning. On a bank holiday weekend they will have to wait until Tuesday morning. Tusla is not fit for purpose and it is not doing what it should be doing.

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