Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

It is outrageous that we are still in a situation where there have been 500 complaints, many of them about abuse in residential institutions over the past two and a half years, and we still do not have independent inspection of these facilities or any mandatory scheme in place to look at the standards to ensure adults and children in these settings are cared for properly.

Apart from the fact that the State is investing €1.5 billion in these services, as it should, surely we should be concerned about standards in these residential settings. This House debated the Murphy and Ryan reports. How can we stand over asking these adults and young children to wait any longer before proper standards are set in place? I ask that the Minister of State, Deputy Moloney, would come to the House to outline what plans he has to address this situation and what budget there is to deal with it, and ask him whether he can find the money do to something sooner rather than later. These adults and children have waited long enough and surely we should have learnt the lessons from the Murphy and Ryan reports.