Results 761-780 of 7,553 for speaker:Ruairí Ó Murchú

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: I will follow on from what Deputy Kerrane asked about the added powers the Ombudsman for Children's Office believes it could be assigned by statutory instrument. Circumstances have changed and the Ombudsman for Children's Office has a large number of people coming to it and while the majority of them relate to education there are Tusla-specific questions and a large number about disability...

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: There are obviously legacy issues. Will Dr. Muldoon give more detail on what he considers would be a more fit for purpose scenario in that situation? He does not have to be utterly prescriptive, just a little.

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: That creates that particular issue we spoke about earlier, that is, trying to deal with children who have been suspended or put out of school, particularly children with more challenging needs. There is no consistency across the board. I accept the difficulties in some of those circumstances so that would be useful. I will put the witnesses back on the spot. I asked the question with 30...

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: We cannot just be relying on, at times, outlier educators and those who have gone away and trained themselves and so on.

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: We need consistency across the board.

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: There is a fair amount of agreement about the necessity to provide interventions and high support and the earlier that is done then the better the outcome. Obviously there is a failing because we are talking about special care and high support being insufficiently resourced with the right sort of supports that are needed for acute circumstances. That is a case of highlighting the issue and...

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: Yes.

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: Yes.

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: The pathfinder project was mentioned. Again, it is the communication piece that falls through. In fairness to Bernard Gloster, he spoke about another aspect. I will use it as an analogy rather than get into the issue around CDNTs. He said the people who had a better experience of CDNTs had a link worker.

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: Therefore, there is a communication-----

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: -----rather than just a frustration of running from one silo to another.

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: That is definitely the piece that is missing. In terms of vulnerable children, eventually their situation could deteriorate into whether it is as children but later as adults into street homelessness. On the particular issues around mental health services, we have all had issues at times trying to deal with some of these vulnerable people and the services are not there. Certain protections...

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: ----actually stop people from getting the care that they require.

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: It is becoming a normality in several places.

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: I realise there has been an element of hogging the questions so will be very quick. I will follow up on what Dr. Muldoon said earlier about the idea of family supports, particularly in what he called DEIS areas. He was dealing with the fact that there is a huge issue of grooming by criminal gangs. Some young lad who sees the trappings of wealth can get a scooter, start doing 20 quid runs,...

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: Their system works.

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: I promise that this is my final question but I am not renowned for keeping to my word. I think Ms Ward spoke about kinship care. That wider family piece is absolutely necessary. We have already talked about what needs to be done and the added supports which are required for foster carers and making sure we have more. When you have those in a family unit, some of which do a lot of heavy...

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: That is brilliant. I was just throwing that out as a comment. There was a worst-case scenario where somebody had been taken into care and given to one of the parent's siblings. The story I remember hearing said it all for me at times. This was probably Tusla's best attempt to maintain someone within a family unit. The uncle went around to say that the wee lad owed money for his drug...

Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: Go raibh maith agat. I left 21 seconds on the clock.

Message from Select Committee (25 Jun 2025)

Ruairí Ó Murchú: The Select Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development has completed its consideration of the Social Welfare (Bereaved Partner's Pension) Bill 2025, made amendments thereto and amended the Title to read as follows: An Act to amend and extend the Social Welfare Acts; to make consequential amendments to the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, to amend the Family Courts Act 2024;...