Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have the opportunity to give an update on the current work of the Department and the issues it has been dealing with since I last appeared before the committee in July. I also repeat the thanks for the work the committee has done and for the response of members of the committee and of Members of the Houses to the discussion on the referendum. We had a wide range of contributions from Members, not least from members of this committee, and we spent more than 30 hours discussing this in committee, with a lot of detail and some very nuanced contributions from a range of Deputies and Senators. Clearly, important points were made about the Constitution. The change for children is not just about the Constitution but also about our legislation and how we deliver services and resources.

All of that was made clear in the discussions we had on the referendum. It was not an adversarial debate. There was a rare moment of political consensus on the wording. As a consequence, we did not get a lot of coverage of the contributions despite this being a referendum on which people will be asked for their vote on 10 November. I agree it is vital that information reaches people, and one of the ways that is done is through coverage of these Houses, and it was unfortunate such a wide-ranging debate did not get the sort of coverage we would like to have seen given that it was a rare moment of political agreement.

Since then, however, coverage has increased on the issue. It is critical the public understands what the referendum is about. If they do not understand, there is ambivalence and confusion. I thank all members of this committee, the political parties and the Independents for their efforts to ensure the information is made available to everyone. The Referendum Commission has published its document and members should have a copy of it. That will go to every home in the country. There is also a dedicated website, childrensreferendum.ie, and my Department and the Government will be delivering a document to every house in the country as well. Information is available from a wide variety of sources and I hope that deals with the information deficit at present.

At its heart, the referendum proposes to place a dedicated article, Article 42A, in the Constitution which has children as its central focus. This is not about giving more power to the State. It is about putting children at the centre and focusing on them and their rights, ensuring we listen to them when they speak, and that the institutions that deal with them, particularly the courts, make a greater effort to listen to the voices of our young people, hear their experience and consider their best interests. To present this referendum as one that will grant more power to the State is not correct. It is about putting children at the centre while having greater clarity about child protection in our Constitution. It is about focusing on the children's issues that have been ignored for so long.

Yesterday we saw once again evidence in the report into St. Patrick's Institution of the failure to look at the best interests of the child. If anything, that report supports what we are doing, that there should be a greater focus on young people and services for them. As the Ombudsman for Children said, she was not listened to when she made her points on young people. She was reflecting the views of young people, so again this is an endorsement of the need for constitutional change, if anything. It is not an endorsement of not holding a referendum, as some claim. It speaks to the need for such a referendum because our commitment in the referendum and our obligation is to protect children from abuse. It puts a greater onus on the State to protect children.

Currently, the State's intervention is to arise only in exceptional cases where parents fail in their duty towards their children. This, however, is more child-centred than what went before because the focus is clearly on the impact of the parental failure on the safety and welfare of the child and ensures the intervention is proportionate, as provided by law. We want to ensure there is support for families at an early stage. It also treats all children equally when it comes to adoption. Clearly, further adoption legislation will also be necessary.

The new amendment recognises children in their own right and, for the first time, will put into the Constitution an explicit statement on the rights of individual children while giving constitutional standing to the best interests and views of the child in child care and family law proceedings. We have this in legislation already but this will give it constitutional standing, which gives it greater strength. I urge everyone to engage with the referendum and examine the issues for themselves and look at all the information available. A great deal of care and consideration has gone into choosing the balanced wording that aims to respect the rights and interests of all parties involved - the family, parents, children and the State.

The referendum serves as a backdrop to the wider programme of change for children being pursued by the Government. These reforms focus on improving capability to promote the safety and welfare of children and to ensure child protection services can respond appropriately to all child protection concerns. We have 30,000 referrals to the child and family services in this country every year and we have 1,500 confirmed cases of child physical and sexual abuse every year. These are real children where real abuse is taking place and who must be protected. The referendum puts a clear focus on that.

The proposed amendment gives the voting public a rare opportunity to consider how we all view children in society and how we reflect that view in the Constitution. It is not only a question for now but also for future generations. It merits the fullest attention and consideration of the voting public.

I support the Chairman's comments on St. Patrick's Institution and welcome his suggestion that the chairman of Oberstown be invited to the committee. He has appeared before but this is a new appointment where he is carrying out a programme of change in order that we have the best possible facilities when we detain young people there.

It was suggested the director general of the Irish Prison Service, Mr. Michael Donlon, should be called before the committee to discuss the appalling report presented by the Inspector of Prisons who inspected St. Patrick's Institution. The Minister for Justice and Equality dealt immediately with the issues raised in the report. It is absolutely shocking to read it and hear details of how young people were being treated in St. Patrick's Institution. As the Minister said, that culture has now ceased. He has taken a range of initiatives to deal with the issues outlined in the report and announced his plans to close St. Patrick's Institution by 2014. It is absolutely unacceptable that the Inspector of Prisons should have to report on a culture in St. Patrick's Institution that results in the human rights of some prisoners, children and young adults, being either ignored or violated. His report identifies significant concerns about the welfare of detained children such as the prohibition on family visits as a disciplinary measure. In fact, he states he has seen things happening in St. Patrick's Institution that he has not seen in any other prison or centre. It is damning evidence about the regime in place. It is extraordinary that it was allowed to continue for so long.

Before I saw any report, I went to the Government and received support to take young adults aged 16 years out of St. Patrick's Institution. All those aged 16 years were moved from it by 1 May as a result of the Government's decision. The Government also made a decision to provide funding for the centre in Oberstown in order that we could move 17 year olds from St Patrick's Institution to Oberstown. This involves a new build, for which I have permission and on which work is under way, as there were no objections to the planning application. It is my intention to move 17 year olds from St Patrick's Institution as soon as we have other facilities available for them. That still leaves 18 to 21 year olds in St. Patrick's Institution. As I said, the Minister has stated it is his intention to close St. Patrick's Institution. In the meantime I will examine whether we can begin to move some of the more vulnerable 17 year olds from St. Patrick's Institution to Oberstown. We are involved in some changes to the staffing arrangements that might make this possible and I hope they will be concluded satisfactorily and that we will be in a position to deal with some of the 17 year olds. As of yesterday, there were 27 young people aged 17 years in St. Patrick's Institution.

When the Ombudsman for Children approached me earlier this year to extend her remit to St. Patrick's Institution, I immediately agreed and wrote to the Minister for Justice and Equality who then agreed to extend her remit to St. Patrick's Institution. That request had been refused for quite a number of years. I was very happy to support her request to extend her remit in order that she would have the opportunity to go into St. Patrick's Institution in her official capacity. When she visited it previously, it was in an unofficial capacity and she met the young people there informally.

I will comment on some of the other issues on which we have been working. Members will be aware thatwe concluded an administrative agreement on intercountry adoptions with Vietnam which was witnessed by the Minister for Justice of Vietnam during his visit. The agreement was signed on 24 September between representatives of the Adoption Authority of Ireland and the Vietnamese central authority. It is the first international administrative agreement for intercountry adoptions entered into by the Adoption Authority of Ireland and Vietnam since the two countries ratified the Hague Convention on intercountry adoptions. That signing will open the way for the resumption of adoptions between Ireland and Vietnam. Obviously, there is some administrative work still to be done, but I am confident that adoptions will open shortly between Ireland and Vietnam.

The necessary legislation for the child and family support agency is being prepared by my Department as a priority to ensure we can establish the new agency by January 2013, when it is my intention that the agency will assume statutory responsibility for services for children and families. That is at the heart of our reform programme. We need to do significant work to ensure we have a safe transition of staff from the HSE to the new agency. There are a number of governance issues to be resolved, not least that the child and family support agency will require a strong legal identity, given the number of legal cases that come before the HSE. We are examining the range of governance issues involved, but I will ensure there is much stronger accountability directly to the Minister than we have seen before. We must ensure we have new innovative arrangements for governance issues between the child and family support agency and the Department. The new agency will assume responsibility for the child and family services provided by the HSE and the family support agency. It will have a workforce in excess of 4,000 and be headed by Mr. Gordon Jeyes, as the chief executive designate who will be supported by a senior management team, the recruitment of which is at an advanced stage. I will not go into detail on the preparations to be made, but they have been informed by the report of the task force on the child and family support agency which I set up and which reported to me earlier this year. The priority will be to legislate for the transfer of child welfare and protection services as set out in the programme for Government from January next and devise arrangements for other services for consideration. We will have a short, medium and longer term plan in terms of the services which can come under the new Child and Family Support Agency.

I thank the Chairman for the work the committee did on the Children First national guidelines for the protection and welfare of children. I have had an examination of the report carried out by the Department. The Department is examining how many of the identified priorities can be translated into legislation. I hope to have the required new heads of the Bill in the coming weeks and we can then proceed to process the legislation. A wide range of submissions were made to the committee as part of the finalisation of the heads of the children Bill. While recent reviews by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church and the HSE show, for example, that progress has been made in the Catholic Church, it is essential that there are legislative obligations backed up by sanctions applying to all organisations involved with children, including but not confined to faith based organisations. Last week the HSE published its audit of the child safeguarding arrangements in 24 Catholic dioceses. A separate audit of safeguarding practices in 150 congregations and religious orders is continuing. There are two audits continuing. It is very important that the audit of the congregations is completed as speedily as possible.

There are other issues, but perhaps members might wish to ask questions at this stage. We published the survey, How We See It: Report of a Survey on Young People's Body Image, which tells us a great deal about young people and how they are doing. There are a range of issues on which we are working. At this point it might be best to leave it to the committee to raise issues of concern to it.