Dail Transcript: Tuesday 22nd June 2010

 Deputy Shatter: – “I will start by dealing with the general issues that arise under the Bill and I will then deal with the review that is to take place into the deaths of children in the care of the State.

This Bill is a monument to the total failure of the Government, through the Health Act 2004, when it created the HSE, to put in place a body that was democratically accountable and over which Ministers had a capacity to exercise any degree of oversight. It is quite extraordinary that the HSE was created as an entirely autonomous body based on a perception that it was the role of Ministers to develop policy and the role of the HSE to deliver services, and that never the twain do properly interact. Continue reading »

Dail Transcript
Wednesday 12 May

Deputy Alan Shatter:  Would the Taoiseach accept that there is widespread concern that the Government is merely paying lip service to children’s rights and child protection? Would he acknowledge that the concern is built on very solid foundations, given that not a single recommendation in the report of an all-party committee on child protection issues, which was published in autumn 2006, has been implemented? Continue reading »

Check against delivery

 Speech by Alan Shatter TD, Children’s Spokesperson during the ‘Cherishing our Children’ session

Since publication of last month’s proposed Children’s Rights Amendment to the Constitution, there has been an eerie and deafening silence from government.  Continue reading »

Deputy Alan Shatter: Like other Deputies, I welcome the publication of this Bill and the opportunity for a serious and considered debate on its provisions. Although I broadly support its intentions, I propose to address some of the issues that have given rise to public debate and controversy outside the House and to outline my concerns with the Bill as drafted. Continue reading »

Excerpt from Dail Transcript
19 January 2010
Adjournment Debate.

Adoption Services.

Deputy Alan Shatter:      The Government should publicly apologise for the indefensible and incompetent manner in which it has dealt with the issue of Vietnamese adoptions. Continue reading »

Extracts from Dail Transcript                                                                                 

Order of Business
17 Dec 09

Deputy Alan Shatter: Does the Taoiseach intend to introduce legislation in the new year to amend the redress board legislation to extend it to those who suffered barbaric cruelty in the Magdalen laundries? Continue reading »