Written answers

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

Department of Children and Youth Affairs

Child Abuse Reports

Photo of Robert TroyRobert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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121. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs his views on the progress report by the monitoring group of the Ryan report which finds that many of the recommendations of the report have yet to be implemented due to resource constraints; and if he will commit to putting the necessary resources in place to allow the implementation of the recommendations of the Ryan report. [12308/15]

Photo of James ReillyJames Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (The Ryan Report) was published in 2009 and detailed disturbing and significant levels of historic abuse of Irish children who were placed, by the State, in residential institutions run by religious orders. The Government accepted all of the recommendations of the Ryan Report, and in response developed an Implementation Plan. The Implementation Plan set out a series of 99 actions which addressed the recommendations to improve services to children in care, in detention and at risk.

The Government has recently approved the Fourth and Final Monitoring Report of the Ryan Implementation Group, and it has been laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. The report of the Monitoring Group has illustrated that the vast majority of the recommendations (i.e. 94 out of a total of 99), have been implemented or are being implemented on an ongoing basis. It should also be noted that the Monitoring Group, which authored the Report, welcomed the significant positive developments that have taken place over the lifetime of the Implementation Plan.

I share the concern of the monitoring group that five of the actions are incomplete. These incomplete actions are in relation to the erection of a memorial to the survivors of institutional abuse; a longitudinal study of children in care; the maintenance of records of children in care and the development of an archive for same, and research into best practice in family law court processes. As the Government has committed to the full implementation of all 99 of the Implementation Plan actions, I will continue to liaise with relevant Government colleagues and the Child and Family Agency as regards implementation and I have also undertaken to keep the Government informed of progress until full implementation is achieved.

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