Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies. I am actually dealing with a question later in terms of children who go missing from care. Obviously, any child missing from care for any period is a real concern, but it is really important to say that the vast majority are returned to care safely. However, that is not to say that even one child continuously missing from care is not a matter of real concern.

Deputy Funchion raised the issue of incidents that have taken place in the United Kingdom and how we could respond. That is why it is important that we have that interdepartmental group to look at institutional and organisational abuse. That is something we put in place that briefly predates this report by maybe four or five months. It is up and running and taking place and it will be considering the issues raised in this report.

Absolutely, some of the quotations in this report are really concerning. As soon as it was published, I rang the interim chief executive of Tusla, Ms Kate Duggan. We discussed the issue and the steps that are taking place. I will be working very closely with Tusla in order that I and the House can be assured that key steps are being taken.

I have already outlined five key areas in which steps have been taken in the last 18 months to two years that are explicitly directed towards the protection of children in care and ensuring that Tusla is directly linked in with An Garda Síochána when a child does go missing. That is why having a seconded social worker in the Garda National Protective Services Bureau is important. Deputies should remember that the protective services bureau is a relatively new innovation from An Garda Síochána, specifically designed to investigate cases like this. There is much better inter-agency co-operation between Tusla and An Garda Síochána and they have the capacity to respond to incidents like those raised by the Deputies.

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