Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I am not sure that today is the day to debate this important report. It seems to me to be an exercise in window dressing because I wonder how many of us will have had an opportunity to give it the scrutiny it deserves. If we were operating in a mature fashion we would be debating this report early next week, having had an opportunity to consider it properly. Instead, we will have bland statements to the effect that the Seanad discussed it and were we not wonderful but that is no substitute for genuine concern for children's rights and welfare.

We are being invited to believe by some that if we had passed the proposed constitutional referendum we would have less of this kind of abuse. I found Geoffrey Shannon's intervention on "Morning Ireland" this morning to be deeply cogent, very clear and wonderfully passionate. Nothing I have heard here today was any substitute for the clarity and the depth of knowledge with which Mr. Shannon spoke. He made it very clear that it is no excuse to invoke the absence of better constitutional protection for children's rights. I am open to that debate and if we can give extra constitutional impetus to the need to intervene in favour of children's welfare, by all means we should do so but we should not cover up or make excuses for people who were in radical dereliction of their duty-----