Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

It is sad and ironic to be debating this topic on the same day we have debated the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. In the latter case, we were told that because of legal advice none of the perpetrators of horrific crimes could be named. Therefore nobody was identified, except by pseudonyms, throughout the report. We know the reasons for that and the authors of the report said they had to do it. It is ironic, however, that on the same day we have had the first debate on that report, we are discussing the Monageer report which has so much material deleted from it.

Does it matter? Different views have been expressed on that but I believe it does matter. What happened with the Monageer report was not good enough. It should not have happened. It may have been a question of putting different terms of reference to the group that carried out the inquiry. I am critical of what the Minister of State said in his speech, which was very legalistic. It was a very legalistic response and he did not ask the questions about responsibility, accountability and putting children first. He asked what he could legally publish. I do not mean to do him a disservice but it is not good enough. He should have accepted our motion and sent the report to the committee in confidence asking it to make recommendations. I am disappointed he is not accepting our motion. He should have done so. There is a supreme irony in the fact that on the same day we have been discussing historic abuses, we are now debating a report in which accountability and responsibility are not addressed at all. That is not good enough.

The Government has been in place for 12 years during which time we have had four Ministers of State with responsibility for children. When I read the response of the Minister of State to the publication of a redacted report of the Monageer inquiry, it was as if we had never had a Minister of State with responsibility for children. It is like reinventing the wheel, going through the recommendations and saying that we will have a place of safety service. Many questions arise, but I do not have time to go into all of them now. Will the staff be available and will they be vetted? If so, who is going to do it? Is it legal to ask the Garda to act under section 12 by going to a family without evidence? In these circumstances, the Garda had no evidence, so is section 12 the correct legal response? We are going to integrate various disciplines but it is like starting from scratch. We have had ten years of Celtic tiger resources and four Ministers of State with responsibility for children but the response to the Monageer inquiry is like starting from scratch. It is not good enough for families. It is like reinventing the wheel in terms of services. We are told that €16 billion is invested in the health services every year, yet this is what we get. It is simply not good enough.

To return to the issues in the report, no assessment was made of the "at risk" nature of the family and no case conference was held. The material about this family was only brought together at the final point when the inquiry team asked for it to be brought together. This is an absolute failure. There was no referral from one part of the country to another to pick up the seriousness of the struggle which the family was having. As so eloquently put by Senator Coffey, many volunteer members of the local society responded but the professional responses were not good enough and yet no issues of accountability and responsibility were dealt with. These were totally missed.

I do not wish to intrude further on the family but it is very clear it was isolated. I want to make a very contemporary point about the family. The family was very concerned about issues of debt. At present, many families are worried about debt and when they get to a stage where they feel there is no way forward, huge despair can set in. I am disappointed the report did not examine the issue of resources or that of familicide, which was critical to this case. They should have been considered in the report.

The report falls short of what we could have expected in the manner of its publication. The response from the Minister of State is aspirational and there is no guarantee the recommendations will be implemented. Similar ones have been made over the past ten to 15 years but they have not been put into effect. How much longer will vulnerable families and children have to wait to have these types of recommendations implemented? We need a Minister who will monitor and evaluate them and demand a response to ensure families who need services get them when they need them.

At present, we have a crisis in child protection in this country. Earlier today we spoke about an historic crisis in our discussions on the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, and it is documented clearly in that report. This is why I believe we need a very strong reaction from Government. We need short-term, medium-term and long-term reactions to the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and to the types of incidents outlined in the Monageer report. I commend the motion to the House.