Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin very much for bringing this very important motion before the House. In recent years I have been working closely with the parents of the children who, by the HSE's own admission, were significantly harmed. It was an extremely damning report. We had interim reports recently and we are now starting to examine the service in north Kerry, following on from the results of the investigation and its outcome in south Kerry.

This is a worrying time. I acknowledge the good work that was done by sound people, such as Michael Fitzgerald in Kerry. It would be wrong not to compliment people in the HSE who have been diligent about their work, faced with an enormous challenge that was not any of their doing, but they were left trying to fix the situation and to put it right.

Sinn Féin will agree that those whom we must think about most of all in this debate are the children affected by the service they received from CAMHS in Kerry, and their parents and extended families. They are the ones whom we must worry about in the future, no one else.

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