Kenny Blasts Care Reports CoverUp, Ireland Online, March 4, 2010

Kenny Blasts Care Reports 'Cover-Up'

Ireland Online
March 4, 2010

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/kenny-blasts-care-reports-coverup-448641.html

IRELAND -- Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has accused the Minister for Children Barry Andrews of covering up 20 reports into the deaths of children in the care of the State.

Deputy Kenny said the cover-up was similar to the secrecy in the Catholic Church which suppressed child sexual abuse.

Yesterday Fine Gael published a report into the death of an 18-year-old woman while in the care of the State.

But a HSE spokesman said today that there are 20 other similar reports which remain unpublished.

"Everybody in the country has been criticising the Catholic Church for covering up child sexual abuse," Deputy Kenny said in the Dáil this morning.

"What's the difference when the HSE and the Minister for Children is covering reports that indicate serious, appalling, fundamental neglect of children in state care?"

Health Minister Mary Harney meanwhile said she doesn't accept there was a cover-up in the publishing of the report into the death of the 18-year-old woman.

Minister Harney said she has full confidence in the Children's Minister and that the HSE was following the legal advice given to it.

"What's done is done and we can't undo that," Minister Harney said. "We have to move on from here."

"In the area of child protection we have invested huge resources."

There is to be a special debate in the Dáil this evening to discuss the controversy surrounding unpublished reports into the deaths of children who were in State care.

The government has bowed to Opposition pressure in scheduling the debate.