Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I request that the Leader make time available for a calm, serious debate on the mandatory reporting of child abuse. It is time such a debate took place in Ireland. Senator O'Toole referred to the extremely important distinction between the protection of the child and the protection of the family. This is a taboo subject with which we are all afraid to deal. I was one of those teachers who, in the early 1990s, encountered opposition from people when obliged to implement the Stay Safe programme. The latter was extremely mild in nature and was designed to assist children to protect themselves.

I also worked as a teacher in the United States. While there, I was obliged to operate within a system where mandatory reporting applied and I received adequate training to allow me to apply it. My experience in the US made me look differently at the areas of child protection and child abuse. I made one report during my time as a teacher in the US. When one makes such a report, one does not know if one's suspicions are correct. On checking the position in the case to which I refer, however, I discovered that there was a history of abuse within the family concerned. A sister of the little boy in my class had been flushing her hair down the toilet because of how she felt about herself.

It is time we faced up to this issue. Senator McDonald spoke very passionately about the terrible horrors in that house in Roscommon. However, this Government has failed to implement the Children First guidelines. Let us call a spade a spade. In every school in Ireland, only one person is trained to be a designated liaison person to report child abuse. That is not enough. The abused or neglected child could be in someone else's classroom. It is only the duty of the school to report child abuse and not to investigate it. I have no doubt that when teachers see nits and lice on a child's face, they ask questions. However, they cannot make the Health Service Executive or the Garda act.

Who is protecting our children? It is time we faced up to mandatory reporting because once one lives under that regime, one deals differently with this issue. One knows that one has a different responsibility.

I am sorry to say that I am losing confidence in the ability of the Houses of the Oireachtas to act for the people. I do not see any point in being in this House if we do not get answers to reasonable questions. Last week we debated the Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Bill 2009 but we did not get an answer as to the bad debts we are taking on for the people. Would the Leader buy a business without knowing what he was taking on? He would not, nor would I. However, we asked the people to do so and they are in the dark.

Can we change? Can the Government show leadership? When we ask the Minister for Finance a fundamental question, he should give an answer. Unless the Oireachtas can force the Cabinet to take action, we are going nowhere. I am a new Member of this House and I wonder why I was elected. I wonder what I can give to the people who elected me. I cannot get answers and it is not right.