The Government is not ruling out holding a statutory review into the case of Daniel Aruebose, Tánaiste Simon Harris has said.
Gardaí searching for the missing boy found human remains on Wednesday at a site in Donabate, north Co Dublin.
The Garda believes Daniel, who would now be aged seven, died about four years ago. The force commenced a criminal investigation earlier this month when the alarm was first raised after suspicious welfare claims were flagged to Tusla.
The case was raised during leaders questions in the Dáil on Thursday, with Mr Harris saying it had caused “significant public distress and concern”.
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He said processes to establish the circumstances around the disappearance must be “thorough and robust”.
Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan extended his party’s deepest condolences to those who knew, loved and cared for Daniel.
“We do know something very seriously went wrong. A bright and bubbly child died and disappeared, and nobody noticed,” he said. “It is horrifying that children can just disappear in this country.”
He said an independent statutory review should be triggered in every case of a child known to Tusla who disappears.
“Daniel was failed in life, let’s not fail him in death,” he said, adding that there should be a statutory review into Daniel’s case.
Mr Harris said it was a “horrific and tragic situation”.
“We don’t know yet what went wrong but something seriously went wrong,” Mr Harris said.
Regarding the possibility of such a review, Mr Harris said he did not think “anything” could be ruled out at this stage and that the Government had an “open mind” on the matter.
Mr O’Callaghan said the National Review Panel, which is charged with investigating the deaths of children in care or known to Tusla, is underpowered and needs to be placed on a statutory footing.
He said it had “no statutory power, no powers to access information, no independent power to publish reports”.
Mr Harris said there is a programme for government commitment to do this.
Speaking at the National Ploughing Championships in Co Offaly, Taoiseach Micheál Martin warned against a “rush of judgment” by people in relation to the case.
Mr Martin said what had emerged was “deeply shocking and very sad” for the young boy’s family, the community and wider society.
However, he said there needed to be further investigations by the Garda and others into the background of the case before a full response could be made.
He said new systems might be needed to track young people in a society where the population was growing and there was more mobility and fluidity of movement.
“That’s more of a phenomenon than perhaps would have been the case in the past,” he said.
“To the best of my knowledge, the child was not in care. There are issues to examine and it must be done on an evidence basis, and in an informed manner.”
Mr Martin claimed there had been a “rush to judgment” by some, noting that Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín was “almost blaming Tusla” in the Dáil on Wednesday even though Daniel did not die while in the care of the State agency.
“The Government will do a broader examination of this, because it’s more than just Tulsa,” he said.
He said the case was one of those at the intersection of family privacy and State engagement.
“We don’t know the full circumstances as to how Daniel died, but it speaks to the heart of all of us as parents that something like that has happened, and it is a reflection of wider society.”
