Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is very fitting that I follow Senator Fitzpatrick, as I will raise exactly the same issue. When walking through the Liberties in Dublin city, let us imagine the sheer volume of tourists who walk through that area, which includes Thomas Street and the Guinness Storehouse, when the pavements are literally sticky. It is that bad. I have looked into the resourcing and the increase in budget. Substantial moves have been made by Dublin City Council over the past number of years. It has a substantially larger budget but it put a recruitment freeze in place and has not restored those figures. We have not gone back to proper, adequate numbers of people employed by the council. It needs a serious recruitment drive. Significant, hard work is done by many individuals on the council, but that needs to be increased. It is shameful that at our key landmarks in our fantastic historic areas, which Dublin 8, in particular, has plenty of, we have what looks like neglect. That is not the intention of council but it certainly looks like neglect.

I intended to call out the report on the targeting of girls in care. Last year, I spoke about the organisation Children at Risk in Ireland, CARI, and the work it was doing in protecting and caring for young women, in particular, who were in care. When the State is the parent and takes on the position of in loco parentis, there should be an absolute standard of protection of young women and girls. Yet, we find, and Jack Power ran a story on this last December, that girls were being groomed, brought to hotels and specifically targeted by gangs. Tusla stand in this space. It is supposed to oversee this. God knows, there are parents in the courts who are desperate to hold onto their children and Tusla makes arguments about how unfit they are. How unfit is the State? I would like statements on that. We need to talk about the protection of children when they are under the care of the State.