Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McAuliffe. Before I call Deputy Ó Cuív, and then the Minister of State to respond, I also want to make some remarks. I apologise to Senator Flynn for not being here when the debate started a little earlier than was scheduled. I also thank her, and former Senator Colette Kelleher before her, for the outstanding work they have done. The statistics published in this report cast a shadow of shame on our State and on our society. There is no escaping that reality.

I have had discussions on this with Senator Flynn, and we have agreed that we will have an implementation group established in Leinster House. The Clerk of the Dáil has already engaged with the Secretaries General of relevant Departments to ensure that we can have ongoing engagement to monitor the implementation of the 84 recommendations which have been brought before us. In addition, we have agreed, and I have given my personal undertaking, that we will re-establish and continue the Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community on an ad hocbasis until the work of the special committees currently being established to examine surrogacy and autism have completed their work. After that, we will formally re-establish the Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community as an ongoing standing committee of these Houses.

Having commenced this work in the Thirty-second Dáil and seen it reach this level of progress in the Thirty-third Dáil, I hope that the Thirty-fourth Dáil will continue to have such a committee so that we can move these recommendations forward and not have a report gathering dust on a shelf, but rather have regular assessments of its implementation. The idea proposed by Deputy Joan Collins, namely, that we should come in here regularly, perhaps twice a year, and debate the implementation of the recommendations of the report, is a very good one.

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