Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)

As my colleague suggested, we have to be fair. A child's life is involved in this. His parents are not in the Public Gallery and have not, from what I understand, requested any motion to be brought in this House but have requested a multidisciplinary statutory inquiry. I sit on the the Opposition benches and I argue with the Government on many matters, but the Government has agreed to meet with that family and has engaged with them over and over again. I think political strokes are being pulled, not just on the Government side today but on the left as well. This battering of one another does nothing to help this family. It does nothing to ensure that no other child will suffer what Harvey went through. Only through the statutory inquiry, through getting it right and through fixing it and having a commitment left, right and centre in this House will we achieve something for that family and for the memory of that child. We have dragged that child's name through this House continuously for the last two and a half hours, and for what? Is it so that I can get on the front page of the Irish Independent or The Irish Times or whatever local newspaper, and so somebody will listen to me and talk to me and I will get a five-second clip on Virgin Media? That is not how we should be doing our business here. We should be coming together as a House to ensure that no other child goes through what Harvey went through.

I come here tonight, as the old phrase says, not to praise Caesar but not to bury him either. It is important that we do not bury one another for political point-scoring or one-upmanship when a child's life and other children's lives are at stake.

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