This week, Fianna Fáil launched its campaign for a “Yes” vote in the so-called care referendum. It is important that we look behind the glossy marketing leaflets and actually analyse where the Government stands on care. Aontú has been carrying out significant research on the issue of children in State care by way of parliamentary questions, mostly to the Department of the Minister, Deputy Roderick O’Gorman. The information is absolutely shocking. First, a record number of children are being referred to Tusla annually. A reply to a parliamentary question that Aontú received shows that, in the first ten months of last year, 72,000 children were referred to Tusla, meaning 90,000 were referred to it in the full year. This is absolutely staggering. It represents an increase of 28% in two years. To put the number in perspective, it is 30,000 more children than sat the leaving certificate examinations last year. Two hundred and fifty-six children per day, or ten per hour, are being referred to Tusla at the moment. Tusla has admitted to me by way of responses to parliamentary questions that it is putting many of the vulnerable children into unregulated residential units called special emergency arrangements. These are typically just rented apartments and they are often staffed by unvetted staff. It is astounding that any government would put children who are so vulnerable into this situation.

We also know that hundreds of children go missing from State care annually. The Irish Examiner reports today that, in January, 22 children went missing from State care. This is incredible. The State is in loco parentis but is now losing hundreds of the children annually. Children taken into Tusla, potentially because of sexual abuse, are being lost to the State, potentially making them targets for traffickers for sexual abuse. The State is meant to be a sanctuary for these children with difficulties; however, either through ineptitude or resource disinterest, it is leaving these same children to be lost to abuse again.

I have asked Tusla to state how many children have reported sexual abuse while in State care. It has told me it simply does not record that information centrally. Other data shown to Aontú indicate that over 200 children have died either in State care or known to State care in the past ten years. Thirty-eight of these have taken their own lives, many more have died from overdoses, and others were murdered.

The rank-and-file staff involved in the protection of children are doing their best. They are under enormous pressure and many are suffering from burnout, but if what is happening had happened to children in the past, there would have been a State apology and a full investigation. Why is the Government not taking the horrendous neglect of children in State care seriously?

The referendum covers three areas, the first being a more inclusive definition of the family to ensure the up to 43,000 children born outside marriage in 2022 are finally recognised by our Constitution and have a sense of full inclusion. It is a very children-focused amendment in that context and it takes within its compass new family formations of recent times. Second, it deals with the role of women in society through the deletion of an article and its replacement, and in the replacement to recognise care. The fundamental issue of care provision is one that the Oireachtas and Government quite correctly have to deal with in terms of the allocation and prioritisation of resources.

The budget of Tusla has increased very significantly over recent years, as have the budgets of a range of other services. In childcare, for example, resources have vastly increased. Fees have been reduced to try to alleviate the pressure on families, including parents, in respect of the care of their children. DEIS programmes, programmes in disadvantaged schools and intervention programmes, including multidisciplinary intervention programmes, have also seen increases.

On children referred to Tusla, it is very sad to note the background issues and challenges families and certain parents have such that children are referred to either foster care or Tusla. Many of these cases are extremely complex, as the Deputy would have to acknowledge. To use words like “ineptitude” is too judgmental. In many instances, cases involve teenagers, who could be 14 or 15, in State services. There is a variety of State services and the people who work in them talk about the children’s complex backgrounds. When the Deputy uses the phrase that children are lost, it is almost as if he is saying it is Tusla’s fault. It is not fair to put it as baldly and simply as that.

The State is in loco parentis.

Yes, we have responsibilities and have to do everything we possibly can to prevent such situations from arising, but any of us who deal with young people in life realise the complexities involved. When Minister for Education, I recall people escaping from Trinity House. I recall that education, health and justice were three silos at the time. That was before Tusla and the more co-ordinated approach that has emerged under the Department of children and equality, which is ultimately the end result of a process whereby we try to unite services for children under one roof.

The Tánaiste raised the issue of ineptitude. I will give him an example of it. Retired Mr. Justice Simms wrote to the Minister, Deputy Roderick O’Gorman, and stated he had “utmost concern” with the predicament of children in State care. He attached four anonymised reports, with permission to share them. He gave them to the Minister, who deleted three of them, with the excuse that there were GDPR issues. A judge stuck his neck out to bring change to this space and the bureaucratic response of the State was to delete the reports. I have learned that the Department actually reported Mr. Justice Simms to his seniors for doing so.

The Tánaiste mentioned issues that arose before. There is nothing happening today that did not happen before but all the information shows that what is happening is happening to a far greater level now. Enormous damage is being done to children in State care. The State has serious responsibilities. High-dependency units and residential beds for the children are being closed down and staff are leaving because of burnout. This has happened because the Government is not focusing resources or prioritising the issue.

In response to retired Mr. Justice Simms’s letter, Tusla is working with officials within the Department of children. There were four documents. The Deputy referred to a bureaucratic response. I think he is referring to the Data Protection Act. The Department formed the view that it did not have a legal basis to process the personal data contained in those three reports-----

Maybe a human basis.

-----and those reports were subsequently deleted from the Department’s records. However, the Department is addressing the substantive issues to which the reports related and that were set out in the correspondence itself.

These are issues that have to be dealt with in respect of the personal information relating to any individual or child in the State. However, again, legislation is on the way, in terms of the general scheme of the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2023. Regarding interagency co-operation, which is essential, the children concerned in the correspondence from Mr. Justice Simms require services from a number of State bodies and improved interagency co-operation is essential to ensure better care and services for children in these situations.