Ivor Callely (Fianna Fail)

I am happy to support the call for a debate on Mr. Justice Ryan's report. First and foremost, I would like to lend my solidarity to all the victims. I hope we will learn from this episode. Equally, we should acknowledge the good work carried out by many of the people, and the agencies of the State, that were charged with looking after children in the care of the State. I agree the report published yesterday should be a catalyst for change in the way we go about our business. While I accept that many of these victims ended up in care after allegedly committing crimes as children, that was not how all of them ended up in care. Some of them were placed in these institutions as a consequence of a variety of social, domestic and family issues. In some cases, it was in the best interests of the children involved to be in care. We should be fair and honest about this. Many children were rightly removed from circumstances in which they were at risk. I hope some of them were placed in an environment in which they were not at risk. We should not be blinkered in our vision in any form or fashion. There is a broad range of issues here. In addition to child abuse there is abuse of elderly people in our society. People spoke yesterday, as I did last week, about vulnerable people being placed in care. The finger points at us to outline what we are doing about resources for care and what legislation is in place. We must be prepared to grasp the nettle and make the tough decisions on these issues and stand over them.

I have asked the Leader for clarification on a separate issue. I understand that the Health Service Executive is changing the administration of the medical card system. We are led to believe that this is being done to save money and improve organisation but the medical card administration section is being brought to Finglas, contractual staff are being brought in to do the work and the existing medical card officials, who do the work parochially and with whom people interact about their applications, are being assigned to other duties. This is another mistake whereby more money is being spent on administration than on the social supports required within the HSE.