Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am calling for a debate on the children of Ireland who are failed egregiously by the State. A full debate will be needed to even touch upon all the failings of the Government and the Minister for children. Since 2017, 62 migrant children have disappeared from State care after arriving in Ireland alone. Twenty of those disappearances were in 2023. These children left, or more likely were taken from, Tusla accommodation. We do not know where they are. We do not know who they are with and what is being done to them, and no one seems to care. Three quarters of the time, the Garda does not even put out an appeal for information on missing children.

Had these children remained in Tusla care, they might not have fared out much better. We learned last year that Tusla care homes have become hotbeds for organised sexual exploitation with lines of cars outside containing men waiting to pick up their 14- and 15-year-old victims. Front-line workers attest to the fact that the authorities know that this happens and they have become desensitised, meaning this is allowed to continue. More than 4,000 kids are on the CAMHS waiting while more than 100,000 on hospital waiting lists. One in five, that is, 20,600 children, have been waiting longer than a year for treatment or assessment by a hospital consultant. In Roscrea recently, the Minister chose to send migrant women and children into the middle of an ongoing protest, presumably to send some sort of political message that protests will not stop him from enforcing his plans for every town he sets his sights on with no consultation with locals as yet.Yesterday, it was reported that unvetted persons subcontracted by Tusla were given access to children at risk.

Any one of these scandals or crises would lead to a resignation in a serious government, but Ireland has long ceased to be governed by a serious people who are serious about governance. Instead the Government circles the wagons around Ministers every time and, with the complicity of the media, works tirelessly to insulate itself from the criticism of the people it is supposed to serve. Therefore, while what we really need is an election, I will settle for a debate on the State's constant failure of the children.