Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leader for setting out the Order of Business today. I suppose it is a particularly important day because we are going to be focusing on children. I also thank the Leader for inviting the Minister to talk about the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation and its report. The report is very profound and makes for very disturbing reading. We will have an opportunity to talk about that later. I thank the Leader for prioritising this and making it the first item on our agenda.

I want to touch on a motion on the Order Paper today on the decision to seek the reappointment of Dr. Niall Muldoon as the Ombudsman for Children. It is the Government's decision and a decision that is warmly welcomed by many, including me. Anyone who has read the commission's report in the past few days will be very conscious of the past. There is a future, but there is today. There is a little book called The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I circulated many thousands of copies last year. It is a wonderful little book. I strongly recommend it to Members. It is available as Gaeilge and in English and it is illustrated for children. Children of three years of age are reading it in school. It refers to the right to clothing, ethnic culture and identity and all such issues. These are critical issues. I took the time to look at Dr. Muldoon's latest report. It makes for very interesting reading. He talks about the frustration in making progress on direct provision and the challenges faced by the Roma and Traveller communities, particularly regarding children. He refers to direct provision and the challenges it brings. He refers to the need to bring people with us in advocating for children. That is about today. There are enormous challenges, and Dr. Muldoon is up for the task.As I said earlier, it is great that he is being reappointed. We need to be mindful when we talk later about the past, present and future. I hope to elaborate on some aspects of that regarding the future.

It is important to say that we cannot pay lip service and talk here about policy and about advocating for people and poor children. They need our support. We know many children with disabilities are suffering today because they cannot access essential therapies and services because of Covid-19 restrictions and how sad that is. We know there are children imprisoned in our system and that there are those who are in psychiatric services. Many people in this House talked about child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, and the challenges whereby children must wait. We know there children receiving psychiatric treatment among adults and how inappropriate that is. There are many challenges. We are the Legislature and the Oireachtas, however, and we can make the difference. I would like to start on a positive note. Let us refocus and re-energise ourselves to support the children of our nation.