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A NUMBER OF TDs in the Dáil today called for Justice Minister Alan Shatter to hand the task of an independent inquiry to the Children’s Ombudsman after two Roma children were taken away from their families this week.
Many of the TDs questioned the merits of the actions of gardaí and the HSE and whether this was a result of racial profiling.
Aodhán Ó’Ríordáin described the events of the last week as an “unbelievably appalling scenario”. He said that, at the centre of “this whole circus, has been a pure, raw, naked, poisonous racism”.
He claimed it showed that the gardaí and the HSE “are willing to believe the worst of some of the communities that live in this land”.
Immediate and serious risk
A number of the TDs in the debate asked whether these children would have been removed if they had not been living with Roma families. The section of the Childcare Act applied is only supposed to be used by the authorities where there is an immediate and serious risk to the child.
“If this was really motivated by the child’s welfare then why did they leave the family’s four other kids with them?” asked Mick Wallace, making reference to the 7-year-old girl in Tallaght who was reunited with her family yesterday.
Shatter revealed that the section of the Childcare Act that was used to immediately remove the children from their homes has been used 582 times this year and a total of 2,825 times since 2010.
Reports
The government has asked An Garda Síochana and the HSE for reports on the incidents with the two children, explaining the procedures taken and why those particular decisions were made.
However TDs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace said the authorities involved should not be allowed to essentially investigate themselves.
Shatter asserted that both reports would be handed over to the Children’s Ombudsman and she would then be free to ask any questions about them and make recommendations which would then be made public.
He accused TDs on the opposition benches of prejudging the cases by singling out gardaí and the HSE as having done something wrong before the facts have been established.
The minister said that gardaí are “somewhere between a rock and a hard place” as they are “open to critisicm for either doing something or for doing nothing”.
The opposition TDs were also critical of the media coverage of the two indicents, with several of them calling it a “media frenzy” and Clare Daly commenting that it was clear that “some elements in the gardaí, at senior level, are feeding their pet poodles in the media”.
Shatter said he was aware that matters relating to the two children appeared in newspapers and “that will be a matter subject to the inquiry”.
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Fair play to him. Nice to see a young man trying to engage with the people. They usually only do this once every 5 years to get elected. And when does being an LGBT activist make you gay. I would also like to see rights for LGBT community and am married with 2 kids. Fair play to him
Question 1: why does a suburban sprawl on the outskirts of a relatively small city require a separate mayor?
Question 2: expenses are bleedin’ deadly right?
Question 3: I’m sorry, and you are?
South Dublin County has the fourth highest population for a council area in the country. Do you believe we deserve less representation for living close to a large city?
To be honest, I think a city of under 1.5m people having four separate mayors & councils is utterly ridiculous. Even if we have to retain the four separate councils, there should be one mayor over them all. There are ways to do this even if not the perfectly logical suggestion for a directly elected mayor which was rejected by Fingal council.
If you look at our national population you really have to wonder about the amount of political representation we currently enjoy. We’re about the size of greater Manchester who have a 12 person council governing them, and then a 2 house national parliament above that, and a queen. We have councils for each county/city (and we define cities in pretty questionable ways), 2 Houses of Parliament and a president, yet when the fat was being trimmed only town councils came in to question. Do we benefit from this excessive representation, or is it a costly hindrance to actually getting things done?
London has a population of 8.3 million. It has 33 local authorities all with their own mayor. It also has a London assembly as well as the office of the Mayor of London. And 4 is too much?
Ask him why he joined SF and how he reconciled his liberal agenda with their kangaroo courts, murder and rape?
Just reply on your Facebook and Twitter. No need to move away from the two
Tumblr is just as good,I’ve lost countless searching throughuser created content, most of it is brilliant,
Tumblr allows you to ask questions anonymously, maybe some people don’t feel comfortable asking publicly via Twitter or Facebook.
Because neither Facebook nor Twitter can be anonymous?
By the way well done Mayor
If he thinks engaging with young people and listening to what people want is the right way for politicians and politics to move forward in this country then he’s in the wrong place altogether. Seems to me that there’s nothing wrong with the “promise earth moon and stars to people to get elected, ignore and deprive systems that need the most help when you do (health, & education for example) then seek out every possible way to impose even more taxes on the mist taxed population in Europe”. Just my opinion tho.
Surprised he doesn’t do a Reddit AMA!
Tom only thing you can do is throw dirt..why not ask him yourself if you are genuinely interested though I fear you would not be willing to listen so closed is your mind
have your say