The Government's Special Rapporteur for Child Protection, Geoffrey Shannon, has rejected claims that a lack of resources was to blame for failing to protect the six children in the Roscommon child abuse case.
Mr Shannon was responding to suggestions by the Irish Association of Social Workers that childcare workers were over-stretched in the region.
A report found that the HSE did not act in time to protect the children, who were abused and neglected for years by their parents.
When asked why it took seven months to challenge an order granting the mother continuing custody of her six children, a HSE spokesperson said that the report spoke for itself and that the Executive would not be commenting further.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Shannon said the children involved were spectacularly failed by the system.
Yesterday, Mr Shannon, who assisted the report's authors, said the risk indicators were evident for some time, but the HSE and its staff failed to pick them up or act.
Speaking in the Dáil, Minister for Children Barry Andrews said a lack of resources had not been the problem.
He said one problem was that the parents of the abused children had been taken at face value and the views of the children had not been listened to.
Mr Andrews said HSE staff had not been sufficiently alert to indicators of neglect - and there had not been an appropriate response to reports of neglect.
Speaking on Morning Ireland, Bernard Gloster, Local Health Manager of HSE West, said the Executive fully accepted the findings of the report.
He said the possibility of dismissals on the back of the report would be examined.
The report examined the failure of the health service to support six children who were abused for years by their parents and found that staff did not act in time to protect them.
Relatives of the children said they have witnessed little change in the HSE in the last 20 years.
In a statement issued through One in Four, they praised the report for fully addressing the key problems within the HSE and the incompetent decisions made over a 15-year period, which utterly failed to protect and listen to the children.
But they said they have concerns that four of the children are still in the care of the HSE West.
They said their experience has left them with no confidence in the health authority's ability to care for vulnerable children.
Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the Irish Association of Social Workers dismissed the HSE's audit of current practice in current neglect cases.
Speaking on Morning Ireland, Ineke Durville said previous audits of this kind had made no difference and had diverted social workers from dealing with families in crisis.
The audit was recommended by the investigating team responsible for yesterday's report.
Existing powers 'grossly underused'
Geoffrey Shannon has said existing legislation designed to protect children is being grossly underused around the country.
Mr Shannon, who advised the abuse inquiry, said that the powers under the 1991 Child Care Act to seek a Supervision Order had not been used effectively during the family's crisis.
He said if they had been, the children would have been watched much earlier by the health and social services to ensure they were safe.
Mr Shannon said this was not the only case where there was a failure to apply for Supervision Orders and that the relevant section of the Act was still ‘grossly underused’.
He added that there was a need for education in the operation of the Act.
Mr Shannon also said that the granting of new rights to children by means of a constitutional referendum would not have resolved the problems facing the family at the centre of the inquiry.
However Fianna Fáil TD for Longford-Westmeath Mary O'Rourke warned that a constitutional referendum on children's rights was the only way to ensure the same thing did not happen to other children.
