This morning I want to raise with the Minister serious concerns around child protection and children's welfare that have been highlighted in a report released today by UCD's sexual exploitation research programme, SERP. The study is about young women and children in State care and in residential care homes and it makes for very distressing reading. It provides a very alarming account of the targeting and sexual exploitation of children and teenagers in State care. The exploitation is being carried out by co-ordinated gangs. The harrowing findings in this research detail cases of girls being taken by taxi from residential care homes to hotels where they were then sexually exploited and abused.

The Minister might have heard Ruth Breslin speak on the matter this morning. The report's authors describe an appalling vista of cars lining up at night outside State-funded and run residential care homes, waiting for young women and girls to come out so they can be taken away. The abuse appears to be systematic and orchestrated. It is an appalling finding. What is also appalling is the perception that emerges from within the study that authorities have grown “tired” of dealing with so-called “problematic” young girls in care being reported missing. That is quite simply not good enough. These girls are at a high risk of sexual exploitation and abuse. Indeed, Tusla has accepted that it failed to keep children safe. It has said this in part due to an insufficient supply of residential places to allow children at risk to move elsewhere to a place of greater safety.

Many years ago, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I used to represent children in State care. There was a real scarcity then of residential places to keep children safe in these situations. We are now a prosperous country. I have listened to the Minister outline the benefits of prosperity and what is effectively full employment. It is appalling therefore that in 2023 we are still seeing a lack of places where children can be kept safe.

My first question echoes that posed by Tanya Ward, CEO of the Children's Rights Alliance, who has asked in response to this report how many cases of suspected abuse of children in State care have been passed on to Tusla or to the Garda. Has the Government been monitoring these awful cases? Does the Government’s reported new focus on poverty and child poverty in particular include these concerns in its scope?

As Minister for Finance, how does he propose to address the funding problems reported by Tusla, which are leaving children so exposed to exploitation?

I heard the Minister announce earlier today that every worker in the State will receive a tax cut in the budget this October. How about we guarantee instead that every child in the State will receive an appropriate home, a place of safety? This Government has an appalling record also on child homelessness. Some years ago, the former Deputy and Minister of State, Jan O'Sullivan, introduced the homeless families Bill, which would prioritise the rights of children at risk of homelessness. Will the Minister address the needs of homeless children in a meaningful way by accepting our Bill? What does the Minister propose to do in response to today’s report by UCD’s SERP centre?

At the outset I want to say that the report and the findings contained within it are deeply shocking. It is disturbing to think that there are any individual examples of that kind of behaviour and practice happening in Ireland now or in the past. I assure Deputy Bacik, the House and the general public that this will be treated with the utmost seriousness, which it deserves.

We welcome the fact that this scoping study on the sexual exploitation of children and young people in Ireland has been conducted by UCD. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is working closely with Tusla's senior management on the subject of child sexual exploitation and is now going to prioritise a review of the findings of this scoping study and its recommendations in the immediate period ahead. This is as one would expect and is right and proper. The study is a very important piece of research into the sexual exploitation of children by potential organised groups of predatory men in our society. Close liaison into the study's findings will also take place between Tusla and An Garda Síochána. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth will also work with the Department of Justice to review the findings and recommendations of this report.

I acknowledge that the scoping study outlines that the interview part of the research took place three years ago. I should point out that in the interim period, a number of important developments have taken place in this area as a key priority to assist with the reporting of child sexual exploitation. I have got a whole list of measures laid out here by the Department of steps that have been taken since then, but I do not think it is the day to be going into those. I acknowledge that the contents of the scoping study are shocking.

On the question of funding, I think it would be readily acknowledged by the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and Tusla that in recent years we have seen a step change in its funding in the budgets that I negotiated with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, as is right and proper. The truth is that the needs are growing and society is becoming more diverse and more complex. We have more minors and children coming into Ireland. As Deputy Bacik is aware through her work, it is the case that all unaccompanied minors who arrive in Ireland are referred by Department of Justice officials to Tusla's team for separated children seeking international protection. One of the first and most important duties of any state is to protect our children. We will certainly work with Deputy Bacik, everyone in the House and with all of the key stakeholders to make sure that the content of this study is very carefully examined and is responded to in the most forceful way we possibly can.

I thank the Minister for his response.

It is good to hear the Government is working to implement measures in response to these alarming findings from the SERP study. That is very welcome. Clearly the focus of this report is a child's right to be safe and a child's right to have a safe home. A government that was serious about guaranteeing that right for every child should be prioritising moving children out of homelessness and should be prioritising not only addressing these very stark findings on children in residential care but also addressing the real crisis facing the thousands of children who are currently in homelessness. That should be the key priority above and beyond tax cuts.

Issues relating to discrimination against children go more broadly than this. Back in December the Joint Committee on Gender Equality recommended a constitutional referendum to provide for a more inclusive definition of family to cover families that are not just based on marriage - for example, families with same-sex parents who are not married and families headed by single parents. What is the Government doing on that referendum on the inclusive definition of family with a focus on ensuring that children in non-constitutionally protected families are receiving appropriate protections and rights? It is again about that focus on a child's right and a child's right to safety. My questions are on a constitutional referendum and Labour's homeless families Bill.

On the question of a referendum, the relevant Cabinet committee is actively working on this issue. A meeting of that Cabinet committee will take place this afternoon as I understand it. It will be given further consideration and there will be engagement across the House and of course public confirmation of any final decision on that particular issue.

On child trafficking, since last year Tusla has partnered with the anti-child-trafficking organisation MECPATHS to raise awareness and to provide front-line staff across its services with training on child trafficking in Ireland, thereby increasing the agency's capacity to respond to what is an evolving area of need and indeed an increasing area of need given the migration crisis that is developing across the world. As the Deputy knows, An Garda Síochána and Tusla have a joint protocol and where family reunification is not possible Tusla will place the child with the foster family, in a residential care unit or in supported lodgings that meet their particular needs. In light of today's study, we will need to examine all those issues. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and Tusla will now be working as a priority on a response to this UCD study.