Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am disappointed but I will not press the amendment. I draw the Minister's attention again, though, to the judgments I have cited, and I ask his officials to examine them because we are in violation. We are not acting in the spirit of the legislation. I take the bona fides of everything the Minister said but I have not had evidence of intrusion by the child care law reporting project. We have to ensure that whatever we provide, we do not open up unintended consequences. I welcome his commitment to undertake a consultation and I hope this can be done in a timely way.

I will seek another avenue, perhaps in other legislation, to progress this issue to allow for more time for it to be considered. It is extremely serious because the more we understand of the cases brought before the courts in respect of children being taken into care, the more we can explain to the public the reality of the cases. During the referendum on children's rights, as I travelled around the country, I became aware of a misunderstanding and misinformation caused by the vacuum that is there. The child care law reporting project has provided invaluable information in helping our understanding but we do not have information from the cases that are uncontested. We do not know at what threshold children are being brought into the care of the State. There needs to be scrutiny and the Oireachtas has a role in ensuring that happens. I appreciate the Minister's response, but will he go back to ask for this issue to be re-examined? It is not going away.