Ms Mary Flaherty:

It is always nice to be back, and it is welcome that the committee is focusing on the agency. I thank the committee for the invitation.

CARI is slightly different in that we are the minnow here among the big boys. We are a small, specialist agency that provides therapy for child victims of sexual abuse. We are small, but we would never need to be a very big agency because if we were to have our dream of being able to provide an adequate service throughout the country, it would not require many millions of euro. That might become clearer as I make my remarks.

CARI, along with most of the others, has been informed of the evolution of the agency as part of the community and voluntary forum since the appointment of Gordon Jeyes as the child care supremo for the Health Service Executive, HSE, and laterally as the director designate of the new agency. We commend Mr. Jeyes for that inclusive report. It is extraordinary what a difference being part of the loop makes, even if we are being communicated bad news.

That is informal and effective engagement with the non-governmental organisation, NGO, sector whom he told us at our meeting last week provides 20% of the services of the new agency. That is a significant fact. In a time of change it has been effective in communicating developments, retaining trust and reducing stress and distrust, if not eliminating it. I am aware that the process of extracting the portfolio budget of the new agency under the HSE has been and continues to be challenging. Standardising and co-ordinating the child care services into an effective child protection system is also a very difficult task and will take time. We are being kept informed of developments by the forum.

The sector has also been included in mails to key managers on new structures, management arrangements, and it has been invited to apply for new management posts as they arise. It is a case of so far, so good. I will leave that work in the capable hands of Mr. Jeyes who, by and large, retains the confidence of the sector, although there is increasing impatience at the slow pace of development and the delivery of change and decisions. I will leave processing the legislation to the members and will use my time here as briefly as I can to ask them to consider services for victims of child sexual abuse as a model for some of the specialist agencies now being funded by the new agency.

As others mentioned, this has been an historic time. I congratulate everybody in the Oireachtas for their work in finally bringing forward an amendment to the Constitution on the rights of the child. The Houses have discussed the Magdalen laundries in recent years. We have had the Cloyne and the Murphy reports about which we have appeared before this committee. However, with the consequent and appropriate focus on the failures of the past, I have been frustrated in my role with the difficulty in getting any attention for today's victims of sexual abuse. The last Ferns committee to report was the one about the services for child victims but I ask members to keep an eye on what is happening about the Ferns 4 (Children) working group, which was tasked with examining the services for victims. It reported recently and has an implementation plan.

In 2010, the last year for which I have seen formal HSE figures, approximately 3,000 new allegations about child sexual abuse were received by the HSE. If its representatives are here later today or tomorrow morning they may be in a position to give the members the 2011 and 2012 figures. In 2008 the figure was 2,300. We can presume from that, therefore, that between 2,500 to 3,000 new cases are reported to the HSE every year. I would like the committee to examine what is happening to these children and, out of a sense of rightness, to ensure that we are responding to them in a way that will not lead to future tribunals. Also, while we are a specialist intervention agency after abuse has occurred, there is a comparison with the early intervention process in that if children get the service immediately after their abuse and do not have to wait until adulthood, the consequences for them and for society are huge in terms of mental health issues, criminal outcomes and a great deal of pain and suffering because it can be hugely costly to them individually, and to their families and to society. Responding when an allegation is made is important.

In terms of what is happening throughout the country about the 3,000 new allegations made, the Fiona Doyles of our time, about whom members have debated recently - I commend another book to them, Did You Hear Me Crying, by Cassie Moore, which is recently published - they are people who are being raped on a daily basis.

Statistics tell us there are hundreds more in their situation today. The Garda Síochána has developed specialist services that deal effectively with initial interviews and again, there are differences around the country. There is an assessment process everywhere, albeit of varying levels of quality. However, if a child is believed and we confirm, that is, if we face him or her and agree he or she has been abused, in many parts of the country that many members represent, there is absolutely nothing for him or her. In a few areas around Dublin there is a cluster of services, between ourselves and the two children's hospitals, as well as in Limerick where we have a service. A review done by Mott MacDonald found perhaps 12 to 14 specialists around the country who provided therapy. One should contrast this with adult services, where there is a State-funded adult counselling service available in all parts of the country. Moreover, they are relatively well funded and there is a network of voluntary rape crisis centres, as well as One in Four and other NGOs, which offer a choice. In other words, one might have no service available to one at the age of 17 but on becoming 18, one has a choice of adult services. This makes no sense and unfortunately, because of the funding situation, the approach appears to be to spread the thin resources available around the country. At present we have waiting lists in our two centres of between one year and 14 months. Think of telling a child he or she has been abused - this would be a minority or perhaps half of the aforementioned 3,000 - and then offering him or her nothing because the child and adolescent mental health services do not treat them as appropriate for their services because they do not have a mental illness. Here and there around the country, there are ad hocservices in the form of voluntary organisations that might offer them some sort of family support. Again, it probably is not appropriate to their real needs, which are the equivalent to those of adults for a specialist service. In the context of these specialist services, as one watches and focuses on the macro problems of the agency and as others have talked about individual programmes, I would like this joint committee to retain an eye on the services for the victims of today. Moreover, until members are satisfied that a network of services is in place nationwide that is at least as good as it can be, the joint committee should not let go of this issue either.