Frances Black (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am here today to raise the same issue I raised two weeks ago, namely, adult safeguarding. I stated then that we are in desperate need of adult safeguarding legislation. That week I was responding to a horrendous report in The Irish Times, which revealed that more than 108 instances of abuse were experienced by adults in a HSE care facility in Donegal and that the HSE not only failed to stop this abuse, it also covered it up. I am back in the Chamber to raise this issue yet again because in the space of those two weeks there have already been more distressing revelations. This just goes to show how urgent and pressing the matter is. First, it was revealed this week in The Irish Timesthat HIQA knew the names of those who experienced the abuse at the Donegal facility in 2016 but that the families were not notified until 2018. It seems now that HIQA was also part of the cover-up.

In addition, last week the HSE national safeguarding office released its report for 2020. I will read out some of the statistics in the report. In 2020, there were more than 10,000 safeguarding concerns reported to the HSE. That might just sound like a number, but it means 10,000 people, loved ones, family members, who were potentially experiencing abuse last year in the middle of the pandemic. Between 2016 and 2020, there were 51,000 safeguarding concerns reported to the HSE. That number is staggering.

I point out again, as I did two weeks ago, that the Civil Engagement Group's Adult Safeguarding Bill was introduced in 2017. We are still waiting for it to be progressed. I ask Senators to imagine how different things might have been if we had progressed the Bill more quickly. Could we have prevented those 10,000 cases of abuse? Could we have prevented 20,000 cases? The HSE report also states that abuse of adults is still likely to be under-reported. That is truly shocking. There have been 10,000 safeguarding concerns reported and it is likely that even more will be reported.

We met with the Law Reform Commission in the past week, which is still working on reviewing our 2017 Adult Safeguarding Bill. Unfortunately, its report is not due out until the second quarter of 2022. To be honest, that is a little bit disappointing. I would have thought it would have been sooner than that. I know that the commission could complete the report earlier if it had more resources. I ask the Deputy Leader to take quick action to help the Law Reform Commission to complete its work as quickly as possible. We need adult safeguarding to be made a top priority for the Law Reform Commission. We need extra resources allocated to its team and we need the report published by February 2022 at the latest.

Given the rate of 10,000 reported cases of abuse each year, we can assume more than 800 cases are occurring each month. Every month we wait for this report and every month we wait to introduce legislation we are complicit in the abuse experienced by 800 more people. These are our citizens, our families, our loved ones and we must take action now.