Minister for Children and Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman has said Tusla’s review into the Kyran Durnin case should be completed this week.
Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week, Minister O’Gorman said he did not know if the Child and Family Agency received a referral due to Kyran’s prolonged absence from school.
However, he expected the Tusla review would contain this information.
He added that the report would also be sent to the National Review Panel.
A search at the former family home of the missing schoolboy and an adjoining area of open land in Dundalk, Co Louth, ended last week.
Gardaí said the results of the search were not being released for operational purposes.
They believe the boy may have been killed up to two years ago when he was aged six.
Minister O’Gorman said he was “entirely open” to a wider view of child protection and the engagement of vulnerable children with Tusla and State agencies.
He said it was important to ensure that different arms of the State that engage with vulnerable children are fully working together.
“I think that’s maybe where we do have some gaps in the system.”
Roderic O’Gorman is ‘entirely open’ to a wider view of child protection (file pic RollingNews.ie)
He said there were three separate investigations taking place into the case – a murder investigation by An Garda Síochána, a review by Tusla and an examination by the Independent National Review panel.
He added that if a wider examination appears to be of benefit following the publication of those reviews, he will commit to one if re-elected.
“This case has the whole country shocked I think, and it is deeply troubling that a child was missing, was not in touch with State agencies for a two-year period and we need to understand what went wrong in this particular case.
“So, we can absolutely understand all the engagements that this child and his family had with Tusla and indeed with other elements of the State and what went wrong in this situation.”
Read more: Days of more questions than answers in search for Kyran Durnin
He said the normal procedure would suggest a check should have taken place with the new school outside the jurisdiction that Kyran was supposedly going to attend.
“That’s why we’ve asked for this review to understand exactly what did or indeed what didn’t happen in this case – we can’t be complacent when it comes to child protection.”
He said he did not know if such a check ever took place.
He added that a child had been missing for two years, so there were clearly failings in this case.
The minister said he needed to see the reviews before further commenting on the relationship between the child, his family and Tusla.
“I think it is important if we are to respond to this in a meaningful way, we have to have the full set of facts before we make these responses.”
The minister said the Government will continuously seek to support Tusla with its work – “in terms of it improving its ability to support the most vulnerable children in our society”.
“Tusla is the final safety net for really vulnerable children…”
Any inquiry needs to focus on ‘fact finding’
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance has said that Mr O’Gorman’s comment that he could be open to an inquiry into the case of Kyran Durnin is “very welcome”.
Tanya Ward said “for those of us working in the child protection and welfare space, I think people are just shocked that Children First, our legislation that’s been in place for nearly 20 years could have potentially failed Kyran Durnin.”
She said it is important any inquiry should look “into the interaction that each and every agency that was working with Kyran’s family had (with them), and to determine if there was some action that could have been taken to prevent whatever outcome happened to Kyran”.
Ms Ward added that any inquiry needs to focus on fact finding “and to determine what situation Kyran’s family were in”.
“It’s really important to look at all the different State agencies and community groups that might have had contact with Kyran’s family and any of the staff’s insights,” she continued.
“It’s really important to discover, was there a point in time where some intervention could have made a difference to Kyran. It is not normal for a child to go missing for two years, and for nobody to report that to the authorities.”
Additional reporting Colman O’Sullivan