I thank Independent Ireland for putting this motion to the House today. This is a very serious issue and one that we in Aontú have raised over and over again in this Chamber for many years. We believe that vulnerable children are being exposed to shocking danger by this Government and by a broken system over which the Minister presides. The figures speak for themselves. The national review panel presents incredible figures. It has indicated that between 2014 and February 2026, a total of 235 children died either in State care or known to State care services. That is a colossal human tragedy happening in real time. In the Dáil, we often talk about the horror and the shocking situations that happened in the past, but this one is happening in our generation and is one that we, in this Dáil, are responsible for. Some of these cases have been incredible. In the first eight weeks of this year, five children in State care or known to the State services have died, which is shocking. One of those children was killed. One child died by suicide. Another child died in an accident and two children's deaths are still unexplained. In the last decade, the level of violence shown to children in State care is incredible. Thirteen children have been murdered and 38 children have died as result of suicide. These are horrific figures that should make any Government and any Dáil stand up in shock and seek to resolve. However, this shocking situation is seldom spoken about in Leinster House. It seldom gets to the front pages of the newspapers or the main headlines in the broadcast news. While this is happening in our generation, it is not focused on properly by the Government. Obviously, there are problems in Tusla, but many of the organisations that are also responsible for the welfare of children are not working seamlessly with those children. For example, Hugh was 16 when he died from a drug overdose after the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, would not take him. Niamh, another child under Tusla's care, died by suicide aged 15. She had also been deemed ineligible by CAMHS. Another report on a girl called Eva under Tusla's care showed that she had disclosed sexual abuse but nobody from Tusla spoke to her because the Tusla area she was in assumed that the social worker in another area was dealing with the particular case. She was discharged from CAMHS after a mere two appointments and her body was found a few weeks later. She was aged 14. I recently submitted parliamentary questions about trafficking. The Department admits that there is no mechanism to cross-reference children flagged as at risk of trafficking with those who are missing from care. That is a dereliction of duty. The responses to parliamentary questions submitted by Aontú in the last few weeks show an increase in child trafficking in this State from ten minors in 2024 to 18 minors in 2025, an 80% increase just in the space of one year. I know for a fact that that is just the tip of the iceberg because this country is really poor at following up on people trafficking. One of the biggest disasters of this Government has been the use of special emergency arrangements, SEAs. The fact that this is allowed to continue is a disgrace. It is shocking that the Government is still relying on special emergency arrangements. In 2023, I raised the issue of unvetted staff in these SEAs and the Minister at the time assured me that all staff were vetted. Now, in 2026, it has been revealed that Tusla was forced to terminate contracts with multiple staff members as it was disclosed that they had been working with vulnerable children without having been vetted. That is not a clinical error or some kind of bureaucratic mess; it is a fundamental breach of child safety laws. Under the Minister's tenure, there is no accountability for it whatsoever. Tusla has referred five private providers to the Garda National Vetting Bureau because they put staff in charge of children without proper background checks. That is the Minister's fault. It is unacceptable that children are being left with individuals who have not had background checks. Tusla has cut its monitoring visits by more than half at a time when the number of children in these locations is increasing significantly. The number of children in special emergency arrangements is going up; monitoring visits are being cut at the same time. Recent RTÉ reports have pulled back the curtains on this nightmare and have shown that children are being moved like cargo from hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation, sometimes with just a few hours' notice, and that these facilities lack proper oversight and fail to meet the State's duty of care. This has created major instability in these children's lives and made them vulnerable to danger, and the scale of this is increasing. We have reports of children living in filth, sleeping on urine-stained mattresses and being left without food in the house and, in some cases, staff who are meant to be in charge of them sleeping until 4 o'clock in the day. There is substantial expenditure in this space. In 2024, the Department spent €270 million on special emergency arrangements. Despite that investment, there are no proper standards for these children. The number of children put in these arrangements has doubled since 2023. One of the biggest problems I have is that when there is a crisis in housing, the Minister for housing is made responsible, and when there is a crisis in health, the Minister for Health is made responsible, but when there is a crisis in relation to the deaths of children in State care, Tusla is responsible and the Minister is not responsible at all. We have brought numerous crises to this Chamber over the past five years in relation to Tusla, and different Ministers for children have said they did not know about those situations at all. We recently submitted parliamentary questions about a young girl of 14 who was put in a placement in Tusla and who was taken by a criminal gang and found a year later in a brothel. The Garda will not tell us whether charges have been brought, whether someone has gone to court in relation to that or whether someone has been imprisoned for it. The Department is putting adults in children's accommodation. We had a shocking situation where Vadym Davydenko was murdered - killed - in children's accommodation by an individual who is now believed to have been an adult at the time. That is an horrendous dereliction of duty, and I believe that the Minister is not taking responsibility for it at all.

Sentiment score: -0.23