Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

That means I have only five minutes. I will endeavour to air some of the issues that need to be aired on the floor of this House in the time we are sharing.

I struggle to express just how astonishing and disappointing all of this is. The Minister said Grace was at the heart of this process. That is simply not true. The rights, experiences and advocacy for Grace have all been undermined by this process. It took eight years, with seven extensions, a report of 2,000 pages, a cost of almost €14 million, and the fact is that we are still left in the dark on the critical issues. The sum total of it is that the commission has made a rather anaemic finding of neglect. What I have heard about the Grace case spells out depravity to me – a fundamental assault on the most basic human dignity of a person who could not speak for themselves. That is what it was. To simply dust this off as dental neglect requiring the extraction of teeth or minor instances of lapses in hygiene insults Grace and does no real justice to, and does not reflect, what actually happened. Family X – Mr. and Mrs. X – were neglectful. There were very serious and credible allegations of abuse, up to and including sexual abuse. The commission has chosen to discount that. The commission report pushes back against those very brave advocates and whistleblowers who came forward to tell the story. However, take from the commission that the family concerned, Family X, was neglectful. Of that, there is no doubt. It is to vastly understate the case. The greatest neglect and greatest failure regarding Grace is actually the neglect and failure of the State and the Government itself. It is neglect, or perhaps even complicity.

I want to go back to 1995 and 1996. The balloon goes up, the allegations are made, and the decision is taken to remove Grace from the home in question. That decision is appealed by Family X and its appeal fails. It then writes to the then Minister for Health, and the Minister acknowledges receipt of the correspondence and, extraordinarily, responds a couple of months later stating the decision was made but that there was then another appeal mechanism and that the health board had reversed the decision.

I, for one, want to know exactly what happened there. I want to know what were the dynamics of that. A decision had been made, appealed and upheld turned on its head and a child returned to this hell and depravity and left there until another whistleblower came forward. I do not believe that the commission has gotten under the bonnet of exactly what happened there for one second. What it does acknowledge is that there was a political intervention. Would we go so far as to call it political interference? I do not know and the commission does not give us those answers but we must get to those answers.

The commission also extraordinarily decided not to investigate the condition or experiences of some 47 other children and young people. That is extraordinary even on the commission’s own terms and on the basis of its anaemic finding of neglect. What has the Government to say about it unilaterally making that call? Why has the Government accepted that? I do not believe it should have.

Then there is the case of the General Solicitor for Minors and Wards of Court. The Minister met her yesterday. Her statement, to my recollection, is unprecedented. I do not remember another case where the general solicitor has come forward in this way. The Minister may correct me if I am wrong. In her statement she not alone affirms that substantive and extensive submissions were made on behalf of Grace, but the second part of what she says really matters, which is that they were not acknowledged or referred to in the commission’s report. What on earth was that all about?

This report is absolutely shocking because it fails Grace again but it is all the more shocking because the world has not changed entirely and all is not well in Ireland still to this day in terms of the safeguarding and well-being of vulnerable children in care. This commission report not only does a disservice to Grace but it also does a fundamental disservice to the political, social and moral imperative for all of us to insist that vulnerable children and young people are protected and, when they are not, to demand accountability. This has been called a "whitewash". I understand why that term has been used. It is utterly shocking. I have no doubt that these are matters that we will have to return to again.

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