Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy for his kindness and solidarity. I very much appreciated the very kind letter I received, on behalf of his parliamentary party, from Deputy Jen Cummins. I look forward to all of us working on a cross-party basis, as suggested by the Ceann Comhairle, on safety in public life. I thank the Deputy very much for that.

The Deputy is entirely correct in the way he summed up the most horrific and tragic situation in relation to Daniel. He is right that we do not yet know what went wrong but that something went seriously wrong, captures exactly the situation we find ourselves in. I pay tribute to the gardaí and all those involved in the search for little Daniel. None of us can really imagine or comprehend how traumatic an experience that must be for all of those on the front line. We think of them and their families, and the trauma they must be enduring today as well, of course, as the incredible trauma being endured by everybody who knew Daniel. On the Deputy's comments about the sad photo not doing Daniel justice, I heard a lot of commentary about that this morning on the radio. I saw a happy photo released to RTÉ with his arms outstretched playing with his toys, with a beautiful smile, that I presume captured the essence of a beautiful young boy. Our hearts break for them now.

The Deputy asked a fair question. My honest to God answer is I do not think we can rule anything out at this stage. The responsible thing for us to do is to try to establish the facts, but we cannot rule anything out. What is the situation as of now? There is obviously the Garda investigation, which the Deputy and I rightly did not comment on. Tusla is conducting the rapid review process of its own engagement with Daniel's family and the Minister for children has asked that the national review panel prioritises the review of this case. Once the Tusla rapid review is completed, which I understand will be within days, that will then be forwarded to the national review panel. It will examine any engagement Daniel and his parents had with health, social, education or any other State services. The national review panel has an independent chair, along with its own independent legal advisers. It makes findings of fact and produces reports that are objective and independent of Tusla, but I do not rule anything out at this stage. This is a deeply distressing situation that is somewhat evolving in terms of what we are learning in real time.

In addition and separately to that, there will be an independently chaired well-being review of all child welfare cases that were closed during the Covid-19 pandemic and where there has been no further contact with the child since. This number stands at 42,000, when all periods of school closure during Covid are taken into account, which takes in the early part of 2022 as well as 2020 and 2021. There are also a number of commitments to change our legislation in relation to the Child Care Act, which would provide further protections in respect of child protection and welfare services in the State and strengthen the child protection legal framework, increase the powers of Tusla and ensure greater co-operation.

In direct answer to the Deputy's question, we keep an open mind on exactly what he asked. We have got to see where the facts bring us in the coming days.

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