Results 11,061-11,080 of 11,816 for speaker:Roderic O'Gorman

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank the Chairman. My speech was originally a bit longer, so I will try to skim through some of the elements of it. I thank the committee for the invitation to speak about my priorities, and I thank my officials for joining me. As the committee will be aware, there is new expanded remit in the Department, encompassing equality matters previously under the remit of the Department of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank Deputy Sherlock. He raised many valid points that we will tease out across this discussion. As regards that legislative process, I believe the Deputy is right. We need to see the commission's report. That is why we have committed and put the resources in place to get it published as quickly as possible and every legislative step we take will be influenced by that. I agree with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank the Senator for those remarks. Regarding the rush on the legislative side of things, from day one I acknowledged that this was not the way I wanted to proceed. The sole reason for the rush was the need to get this legislation passed by the 30 October deadline to ensure we could protect the database. That was the sole reason for the rush. In all the items of legislation I have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank Deputy Ward. The entire Government is absolutely committed to publishing the report as soon as possible. There is no desire to keep survivors of mother and baby homes and the county homes that were investigated waiting for the information one moment longer than is necessary. What is necessary is that my Department and the Attorney General carefully scrutinise the report and make...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank Senator Ruane for her questions. On socioeconomic status, the programme for Government did not make an absolute commitment to legislate on this issue but makes a commitment to examine it. I am strongly in favour of doing this but we need to bring forward the evidence. The Senator spoke about research done in this area in the past. This will add to the body of evidence supporting...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: My apologies. I am very wary of doing that. What I can say is that we want to get this report out to survivors as quickly as possible. I have already indicated that all of the legislation that I have spoken about and that I want to start working on needs to be influenced by the report. The report is needed to put that legislation in context. There is no desire among anyone in government...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: On the question of advice, the Deputy will be aware of the convention that we cannot publish Attorney General's advice. I and all Members of Government are bound by that. That is as frustrating for Opposition Members as it would have been for my colleagues when they were in opposition. When the commission of investigation submitted its sixth interim report in January, it outlined that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I am having phone calls with a range of members of the collaborative forum over the next number of days. I have also received the document that has circulated to Deputies and Senators and, as I have said, I acknowledge that I should have engaged immediately with members of that forum and with representatives of the wider groups on this issue. My initial step is to talk individually with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: Senator Fitzpatrick has given me quite a list . I agree with her that five years of work has gone into the commission's report and a lot of it was put into creating the database. This is why the legislation was put forward, solely to have a database that will be of use to survivors. It is the only reason the legislation was ever put through. I am glad the legislation was passed because the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I apologise. My laptop died and I have jumped onto the laptop of one of my officials. Can I be heard?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I apologise.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I apologise for the breakdown there. With regard to Bessborough House, perhaps it is best that we wait for the report to come out. It will have a detailed chapter on Bessborough. It would be best to look at it then and we will be in a position to address queries about the next steps. The Senator has raised an important issue about adoption. The reason information and tracing legislation...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I cannot see if the Chairman is still wearing her fostering badge but I know she was wearing it earlier. Fostering awareness week is coming up and my Department is doing one or two discrete campaigns. As well as the wider fostering campaign, we are also looking to target fostering parents within the Travelling community. We are also looking at a programme to encourage foster parents for...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I acknowledge what Deputy Crowe is saying on the burials in Tuam and what was done there, and the importance of the State taking action now to give some dignity to those children and babies in death. It is a dignity we will probably see was not afforded to them in life or immediately on their passing. As regards the timeline for information and tracing, I hope this legislation will be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: We are having camera issues. Can the Chairman hear me?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I heard everything Deputy Flaherty said. I agree with everything he said and thank him for his comments. We can give a full assurance that there will be absolute disclosure of everything in this report. It is incredibly detailed. It contains 4,000 pages. It includes chapters on each of the mother and baby homes and a social history chapter that tries to give the context of Ireland in the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I can still hear the Senator and the Chair.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank the Senator for her comments. On the issue of residential care and the preference for fostering, I absolutely agree. Fostering is always the preference. Of all children in care in the State, 91% are in foster care and 7% are in residential care. That shows the extent to which Tusla focuses on residential care but there are situations where a child or, often, a young person has...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Roderic O'Gorman: That is why we have had to put in additional supports. We could not do otherwise. If there is a situation involving a young person whose needs far outstrip the capacity of a foster family, we have to put in place that level of care. The Senator referred to direct provision. This cannot, and will not, be simply a name change. It is a complete approach to how we treat people in the...