Labour education spokesman Ruairí Quinn has sharply criticised the Health Service Executive (HSE) for failing to respond effectively to a suicidal parent who told a primary school principal that she was thinking of killing herself and her three children.
Mr Quinn, who said the operation of the HSE made the KGB seem like a transparent organisation, told the Dáil that he received an e-mail two days ago from an inner-city primary school principal. "She had been informed by a suicidal parent that the parent was of a mind to kill both herself and her three children. The principal had reported this to the relevant section of the HSE, which is akin to throwing a ball into a haystack.
"Effectively, this bewildered principal, who has 25 years' experience, who I know personally and who I regard as a professional in every respect, had sent out a cry for help on the basis that she did not receive the required response."
Mr Quinn said he wanted to formally bring the case to the attention of Minister of State for Education Seán Haughey because "I have formed the impression that the Department of Education and the HSE do not even know their respective locations. I have formed the impression that the Department of Education has no proper connection with what used to be the health boards and what is now the impenetrable HSE, the operation of which makes the KGB look like a transparent organisation."
He was speaking during a debate on a motion to give the commission inquiring into child abuse an eight months' extension to the end of January 2009 to allow it complete its report.
Introducing the motion Mr Haughey highlighted the commission's functions as part of the Government's efforts to redress child abuse.
It is investigating the causes, nature and extent of abuse from 1940 to the present. Some 1,090 abuse victims spoke to the committee established to hear cases on a confidential basis, while the investigative committee has conducted full hearings for 252 people. The costs of the commission to the end of last year were €43.7 million and up to €55 million may be required this year and next, Mr Haughey said.
Fine Gael spokesman on children Alan Shatter had earlier told the Dáil that child abusers in the south of the State "have practically open season to abuse children". He had information that the Children First guidelines on child safety were not being implemented and that "if one is a child abuser in the southern part of the country one is less likely to be detected" than in the Dublin-mid-Leinster area. He said that "in the context of those areas, for example, in 2006 out of the totality of child abuse allegations made, 29 per cent in Dublin-mid-Leinster area were found to be correct as compared to only 7 per cent in the southern area".
Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes said it was crucial that the commission's report be published as soon as it completed its work.
"Crucially the victims of this extraordinary scandal of child abuse are people who now are in their 60s, 70s and possibly 80s." Mr Hayes pointed out that more than 1,000 untrained substitute teachers are working in the system daily, yet there is no means whatsoever by which to vet them and assess their standing in terms of child protection".
Mr Hayes said "there is a fundamental legal loophole over which the department has presided. There are no vetting arrangements whatsoever for untrained substitute teachers, yet we talk about the extraordinarily scandalous abuses of the past. This is unacceptable. The department has known about this problem for many years."
