Publication of the second interim report of the commission of inquiry into mother and baby homes has been delayed because of the time required to respond appropriately to its recommendations.
Minister for Children Katherine Zappone pledged earlier this month to publish the report by the end of March but she said on Tuesday that the delay was "for very good reasons".
Ms Zappone did not give a date for publication but she expected to be able to “clarify the time frame for the Government’s deliberative process in the coming week”.
The Minister was very disappointed that she could not publish it as she planned and she was “very sensitive to the expectation of former residents and their advocates who want to see the contents of the report”.
Engage
But “it has been necessary to engage with Cabinet colleagues on issues in the report, that extend beyond my remit as the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs” and this had taken longer than she had envisaged.
Labour spokeswoman on children Jan O’Sullivan said the Minister had had the report since July 27th and “there does appear to be something in the recommendations that Government is maybe not all that keen to implement”.
Ms Zappone said “the extension of time required is because of the – extreme is not the right word, but the amount of time required to respond to some of the recommendations in the report in a way that maybe we need to do differently than we have done in the past”.
Transparency
But she added “I am getting very significant engagement across Government departments in order to find that way”.
Ms O’Sullivan asked the Minister in the interests of transparency to consider publishing the report even if she did not have the Government’s full response.
Ms Zappone replied that she was being transparent about the process but “I have decided that it is more helpful if the Government can have a little more time to come to a sense of a plan in relation to responding to the recommendations of the commission”.
