James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat. I accept the Senator’s bona fides on this, however, I wish to point out that the threshold at which a report is required to be made to the Child and Family Agency by a mandated person is set out in section 2 which is the definition section of the Bill. The requirement is that the mandated person reports harm or risk of harm to a child. Harm is defined as assault, ill-treatment or neglect that is or is likely to seriously affect the child’s health, development or welfare. Harm also includes sexual abuse. On ill-treatment and neglect, the threshold for reporting is there for where the ill-treatment or neglect seriously affects the child’s health development or welfare. Welfare is further defined as including the moral, intellectual, physical, emotional and social welfare of the child.Emotional abuse, while not specifically defined in section 2, is encompassed in the definition of ill treatment, which includes cruel treatment of a child. Accordingly, the definitions included in section 2 encompass the proposed amendments. Also, the threshold for mandatory reporting in the Bill is lower than the threshold proposed in the amendments which require “significant and serious injury" as the threshold before a report is required to be made to the Child and Family Agency.

For these reasons, I am not accepting these amendments.