Larry Butler (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State. He is doing an excellent job ensuring the children of the country have a voice through the preparation of the legislation. I refer to the remarks of Senator Cannon. It is not long since he was involved with the Government on this side of the House. He made little or no contribution on child care while on this side of the House. Since he went over to the other side of the House it has been a case of empty drum banging and point scoring, which is not what we should be doing. We should ensure the children of this country are No. 1. The Government has appointed two Ministers of State in the Department of Health and Children with responsibility for child care. The current Minister of State has done great work since taking over.

The children of this country will have a voice for the first time and they will have protection under these new proposals. We must ask ourselves what we have done in the past six or seven years. I recall when I was on a health board there was no health care or child care policy within the health system. The current and preceding Governments introduced legislation to ensure children would be on top of the agenda. The current Government is the third in a row to take on board the importance of our children.

What did we do? We have come from a very low base to ensure child care and associated facilities are monitored. What have we done in the areas of play centres for child care? During the past 12 or 13 years, every county council throughout the country has ensured there are proper playgrounds and child care facilities throughout the country. Regardless of where one goes now, one will see a playground for children. There is a lovely playground in Graiguenamanagh, completed in the past year and a half or two years. It is a credit to the local county council. That represents true investment by the Minister of State, who ensured funding for facilities for young children would be included in the budget.

How do we ensure the Ryan report and the various other reports are a thing of the past? It was important to establish the problems that arose within the child care system. We trusted various people to look after the children. Perhaps the Governments of that time should take as much responsibility as the churches and other organisations which looked after our children. We left it to those people to do the job but we had no way of checking it. Now, we have a Minister of State in place and there will be legislation and child protection in place.

We have come a long way and it is important not to rush the required legislation. Proper thought and benchmarking should be included in the legislation to ensure that when we introduce legislation for child care and hold a referendum, the proper referendum is put to the people. We should not rush the process because Senator Cannon and his colleagues on the other side of the House wish to include by-elections in any poll. We all know what happened in the last by-election.