Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill and I congratulate the Minister on the work she has done in respect of getting it to this point. Everyone believes it is long overdue. In principle, I support the Bill but I am aware that amendments will be tabled on Committee Stage. I hope these will be accepted in the spirit in which they will be advanced and that they may result in some changes being made to the legislation.

The purpose of the Bill is to amalgamate a number of existing agencies, namely, the HSE child protection and welfare services, the Family Support Agency and the National Educational Welfare Board. The new agency that will result will have quite a large staff of some 4,000 and a budget of €500 million. However, these are not new staff and this is not new money. Both are being transferred. It is important the new agency should begin life debt free. It would be a wrong signal to send if that were not the case. In such circumstances, the deficit should not be transferred.

I was a member of the Commission on the Family which was established in the wake of the successful referendum on divorce and which sat for a couple of years. At that time, the Department of Social Protection was known as the Department of Social and Family Affairs. I was very upset when the family affairs aspect was lost because the Department to which I refer was the only one which had any kind of focus on family over the years. The Commission on the Family examined the position of families in which problems might arise but it also considered developing good policy around supports for families. I hope the new agency will have a similar dual function and that it will consider the type of policy we should be adopting as best practice.

The purpose of the agency will be to support and encourage the effective functioning of families, provide psychological services for children and families - a very welcome development - and offer care and protection to the victims of domestic, sexual or gender-based violence. A new refuge - it will be the only one in the area - is due to open in south Kildare quite soon. A great deal of money was spent on developing this refuge, which is an extremely good facility. I wonder about the kind of supports which are put in place in facilities of that nature in the context of how children are treated. I am concerned that the refuge will be seen as a temporary place in which to put people while they are at risk, rather than being perceived in a much more holistic way. It must be recognised and understood that the women and children who end up in such refuges are very traumatised.

It is a very good example of design and the ethos is very good but it must also be resourced.

An overriding principle of the Bill places the best interests and views of the child at the centre of decision making. An annual report on the agency's functioning will be required and it will be presented to the Minister and laid before the Oireachtas. Is it intended that this will be one step removed from oversight here? Will it be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas or will the Minister be directly responsible for the agency in terms responding to parliamentary questions, or will there be a separation as applies in respect of the HSE, which I consider to be a big negative?

The agency will be obliged to furnish the relevant policy information to the Minister. I presume, if that is in the public interest, there will be a role for the Oireachtas committee in that respect also. If we are to believe what we are being told, the committees will be examined as a vehicle for generating legislation, and that would be an important development.

The agency will be governed by a nine-person board. I like the idea of the term limits that will apply. That will allow for bringing in fresh ideas and at the same time there will not be a loss of experience. I note that expressions of interest have already been sought for candidates. I welcome the involvement of Nora Gibbons. I do not think anyone could doubt that she is incredibly expert in this area and has done some extremely good work in very difficult situations.

It is important that there will be a facility for complaints to be lodged to the agency. For too long as a State when a child needed care or refuge we handed that provision over to someone else. It might be something that stems from colonialism, namely, we have a difficulty with power, taking power and using it but we did so right from the formation of the State. We have seen some disastrous results as a consequence. What is welcome about this Bill is that it is the State taking responsibility. There may well be flaws in it and it comes down, as has been said, to having the resources to back it up, but at least that is the intent. The intent to act in the child's best interest is incredibly important.

We all agree that most families function well and many will never need to have recourse to an agency such as this, apart from the policy formation side of it. Other families do not function well and require intervention. As a public representative I have found it incredibly frustrating over the years to try to find solutions where I know that a more co-ordinated solution is required. Having all the services available under one roof is important.

In many ways we have abrogated our responsibility to children. We have approached child care services in a piecemeal, ad hocand fragmented way and, as a result, children have suffered. I need point no further than to the report of the Independent Child Death Review Group for a harrowing example of our collective failure of children. If one has a bad process, one will get a bad outcome. It is important that we get the process right and the legislation sets that down.

In that context, I welcome the Bill and what it aims to achieve. I recognise it as the biggest and probably the first real attempt to restructure children's services in the history of the State. It is not that many decades ago that the view prevailed that little children should be seen but not heard. That was a terribly dangerous approach to child welfare.

I have a few comments to make on some of the proposals in the Bill. I wish to comment on the type of institutional culture that will be needed if the child and family agency is to succeed in its aims. This is a vital element. The new agency must put the child at the centre of all decision-making and operations. That is a key element that has been missing in our existing fractured approach. We have to get that right from the start. That should dominate the thinking of the new agency.

The Children's Rights Alliance submitted a very useful contribution, as has Barnardos. The Children's Rights Alliance requires that not only the views of the child be ascertained but that they are given due weight. That is important. It is not only a question of listening but of listening and acting. Barnardos agrees that the existing wording should be strengthened. This could be achieved to copperfasten the type of ethos that we want. The Children's Rights Alliance also recommends a specific subsection guaranteeing the principle of non-discrimination in the operation of the agency. Deputy McLellan drew attention to the need for that. That would be a very worthwhile amendment to the Bill.

Provision of the necessary resources and inter-agency co-operation are critical. That principle does not apply only to the ethos of the new agency. Laws are fairly useless unless provision to implement them is adequately resourced, particularly when the delivering of a service is involved. We must make them a reality and one does that by having people with the right ethos and the right range of resources.

The Minister will agree that we need to see concrete resources and support offered to the new body, a task that will be difficult given the current state of our public finances. There is a mismatch in the staffing and in terms of the 4,000 staff the Minister mentioned, their distribution can be variable throughout the country and the expertise within the new agency may not be based in the right location. I would like to hear the Minister's view on the way that can be remedied. Is the Minister having discussions with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform regarding that?

Section 8 lays out specific requirements on the new agencies to promote inter-agency co-operation, which is critical to the successful functioning of the new agency. We need to see how the new agency will co-operate and the way it will do so in the best interests of a child. Has a regulatory impact assessment been done, for example, in regard to this legislation? There is not a Member who does not know of individual cases to which we can draw attention on which three, four or five different actions are required. We need to know the way that co-operation will function before the new agency commences its work. I never want to see this State having to make more apologies. We must anticipate that to ensure we do not end up doing that. We do not want to find ourselves in that position 20 years from now. We have got to get this right.

As a Deputy I am very familiar with parents contacting me having reached the end of their tether in trying to access State services for their children. It is often a child with a special need and not something that will necessarily be part of the remit of this agency. They often come to me with a big folder under their arm. Such parents find themselves in a situation where they have to be the advocate for the child on a daily basis to try to eke out the services and supports that should be in place for them. Our clientelist political system would not function if we had functioning public institutions. That is the reason it is important to get this right.

In this regard I certainly do not want to be a middle woman. We know about the role played by the middle man and the middle woman in the operation of this kind of politics. I think people should be able to access the services they need for themselves. I know the Minister, like me, will have seen the stress endured by families. I do not know if the new body will have a function beyond where there are special needs. I would welcome what the Minister has to say in this regard.

Barnardos has made the point that parents should be active agents rather than passive recipients of services. Their role needs to be recognised. Parents are trying to do their best for their children. I have had parents in my constituency office telling me that their ten, 11 or 12 year old is going to end up in prison. It is not the case that the parents in question have not tried their best to do something. They are struggling to access interventions to assist children who are out of control, have serious behavioural problems and have not received the early interventions they need.

Barnardos has recommended that a definition of "the child" should be included in the legislation. I think this is a sensible approach. During the Second Stage debate on the Bill that was introduced last year to provide for the children's rights referendum, there were calls to define what is meant by "the child". I did not support the definition that was proposed at the time because I thought it was overly narrow and I did not think it would correctly positioned if it were included in the Constitution. It could be argued that this legislation is the correct place in which to include such a definition. I would welcome the inclusion of a definition to remedy this omission from the Bill. I am aware that this point has been made by Barnardos and the Children's Rights Alliance as well.

The referendum obviously placed the best interests of the child at the core of our approach in this area. Section 9 goes a long way towards enshrining that principle in law. However, it has been argued by Barnardos and the Children's Rights Alliance that this could be strengthened. I would like to hear the views of the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, in this regard.

I believe there could be a greater focus on early intervention, about which I have spoken previously. We all know that better outcomes are achieved when intervention takes place at an early stage. Early intervention is good for the child, the families and the State. The cost over a person's lifetime of locking him or her up when he or she is young and trying to undo that damage at an later stage is far greater than the cost of the kind of investment in early intervention that we would all like. There is no reference in the Bill to the remit of the agency with regard to early intervention. I would like to know what is planned in that regard.

The new agency will have a large staff complement. I believe the 4,000 workers in question are unfairly distributed around the country. In many cases, it is a case of lottery by postcode. It depends on who was there at the time. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say on this critically important matter. The area I represent has one of the highest birth rates in the country. Some €20 million was supposed to be allocated last year for the provision of therapy services, but that did not happen and it was pushed into this year. We are a good way into the year, but most of the services have not yet been provided. It is likely that the entire €20 million will not be spent - some of it will be sucked back into the HSE budget. We are postponing the provision of critical services that children need. We will pay a price for that.

There is no mention in the Bill of an express entitlement to aftercare services. Barnardos has pointed out that such services are vital if children are to make a successful transition to the adult world. We owe it to children who have been in this framework for most if not all of their lives to help them to make this transition. I would like to know where this element of the service fits into the new structure. What is the Minister thinking in this respect? I do not doubt that many amendments will be tabled on Committee Stage. Although I am not a member of the relevant committee, I might propose a few amendments in due course. We can all say we have an investment in families and in child welfare because we all function in such environments. I would be surprised if amendments are not tabled from many quarters, including those who are not on the committee.

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