Written answers

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

Department of Children and Youth Affairs

Child Abuse Prevention

Photo of Jonathan O'BrienJonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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426. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if he will report on the work of the Ryan report monitoring group since its establishment, to date; and the date on it will publish its fourth progress report. [12706/15]

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 May 2009. It detailed disturbing and significant levels of historic abuse of children, who were placed by the Irish State, in residential institutions run by religious orders. The Government accepted all of the recommendations of the Ryan Report, and in response developed a detailed Implementation Plan, published in July 2009. 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.

A Monitoring Group was established to oversee the Implementation of the Plan. The Monitoring Group included representatives from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, the HSE (now the Child and Family Agency), the Health Information and Quality Authority, the Irish Youth Justice Service, the Department of Education and Skills, An Garda Síochána and the Children’s Rights Alliance and was chaired by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. The group met twice a year and three Progress Reports were prepared, presented to Government and subsequently laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. The Monitoring Group has now concluded its work and been stood down.

The Government has recently approved the Fourth and Final Progress Report of the Ryan Implementation Monitoring Group, and it was laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas on 13th March, 2015. 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 on-going 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.

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