Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I rise today to congratulate the Government on the budget. It has been an exceptional budget. It has particularly focused on children and families. There are two areas I want to call out in particular that were specifically mentioned by both Ministers yesterday. They are areas for which I have been advocating for a very long time. The first is tackling and really intervening on child poverty, which was specifically mentioned and called out. I advocated for tackling it prior to the establishment of the child poverty unit in the Taoiseach's Department but I am glad to see a focus on those issues.

The second issue is the issue of smartphones and technology usage. It is good to see the coming together and the marriage between Coimisiún na Meán, the Department of Health under the remit of mental health for young people and the Department of Education. They have brought together a consolidated effort along with CyberSafeKids, which has been specifically named and representatives of which are in the audiovisual room now. Anybody finishing here might like to drop down to talk about enhanced supports for parents, children and young people to make sure they are staying safe online and in their use of technologies.

I want to contrast a Government that is focused on advancing children and keeping them safe with an article today by Sam McBride in the Irish Independent, in which he calls out the very shocking case of a member of the Sinn Féin press office who is under investigation and has subsequently admitted to paedophilia and child sexual offences. That man was suspended and was able to leave of his own volition. Two other press officers managed to give him a reference to go to work with another organisation, the British Heart Foundation, where he would be working directly with children. They never felt the need to mention to the British Heart Foundation that he was under investigation for paedophilia. It is a shocking dereliction of child safety.There are child protection issues to be answered. Unfortunately, we do not have a reciprocal Leaders' Questions to find out what Deputy McDonald's position on that is, and to ask about her leadership of an organisation with such a blatant disregard for any level of child protection. It is shocking, and it needs and demands to be answered.