Mr. Gordon Jeyes:

I welcome the opportunity to meet the committee. I believe members have a copy of my statement and, therefore, I will go through that quickly to allow maximum opportunity for what I hope will be a wide-ranging set of questions.

With regard to the background, a range of critical reports led to a programme of reform and a particular commitment to separation. The important issues were a lack of clear accountability, too great a degree of inconsistency across the country and poor performance management, data poverty and poor quality assurance arrangements. The first step in addressing these issues was the appointment of a national director for children and family services in January 2011, namely myself. A few months later, the programme for Government set out fundamental changes in the delivery of child and family services and determined that there should be a separate agency dedicated solely to the welfare and support of children and their families as well as the establishment of a Department with representation of children at Cabinet level

I began by looking at all the recommendations from all the reports and found that many of the responses that had been established by various working groups had occurred somewhat in isolation. There were at least 58 of these groups and goodness knows how many recommendations. The first task was to produce a coherent and rationalised programme of reform along clear themes, which are outlined in appendix 1. More material is available on the reform programme for any member who is particularly interested in it. It is important to consider everything in the context of the programme for Government, whose overarching themes were to ensure cohesive reform not only in children services, but across the health sector. It is important that services are accessible and delivered and managed at the most local practical level. They should be customer or patient-centred rather than determined by professional boundaries to create a culture that is responsive, outward-looking and inclusive. The emphasis is on accountability and transparency.

My acronym for the year was very much ACT - accountability where the well intentioned integrated approach within the HSE had led to great complexity and too many people reporting in with too little professional management beyond a certain level. It is now the case that principal social workers are only three steps away in a direct line from the national system and it is also only three steps from front-line staff to area managers. We have a general programme to improve the consistency of the advice and support provided around the country. We have published a book on child protection and that will be followed shortly by one on advice for foster parents, an alternative care handbook. Appendix 2 contains a diagram, which describes a service delivery framework in order that we can have a system that ensures each referral or contact made with us gets a response which is efficient, effective and proportionate to the family's needs while building on the family's strengths. We also have made great strides with regard to transparency. We regularly publish the independent reviews of serious cases and child deaths. They are available for open scrutiny, as is the way in which we drive these forward for learning at local level. Every aspect of the reform programme is regularly discussed, not least with an open-membership voluntary and community sector forum and I also have an advisory group of young people who have been through the care system. They are there to keep me real, as they tell me "You may say that, Gordon, but that is not what is happening". I meet them at least four times a year and they meet ten times a year.

There is a tendency, because I was appointed to lead a social work programme for two years for me to be particularly identified with that. That was a job I was asked to do and I gave it my best endeavour. That is a work in progress. There have been significant strides but much done, more to do. That is a separate issue from the job I am now tasked with, which is about establishing an agency. It is about moving beyond repairing best practice. There is a superb opportunity to redesign and re-imagine and, therefore, we need to take that forward. The devil is in the detail and the big picture. Detailed work is going on in difficult circumstances relating to due diligence, 4,000 transfer letters, a memorandum of understanding in order the health services do not walk away from children, new ways of working and new relationships, joint planning and partnerships.

The nuts and bolts of the agency are taking shape. Families do not live in silos or within boundaries. The intention behind the reform for clearer accountability and transparency makes sense but we must then come together, particularly in disability, mental health and children's services within the framework of primary care networks. We need new fund-holding mechanisms, which are about funding the family or the client rather than the professional services. The new partnerships will be complemented by the legislation shortly to be laid before the Oireachtas to create the agency.

It is important that the agency be staffed by people clear in their values, consistent in their behaviours according to these values and accountable for how they behave. We must acknowledge but not be constrained by the difficult financial circumstances, recruitment issues caused by ceilings imposed by the troika, from which no service is immune, and issues about keeping the reforms in step in order that the crucial relationship between children's services and health and education remain fully aligned to maximise the impact of the change.

The way in which these themes will be pulled together requires a search for fixed points about subsidiarity and delivery according to need as opposed to "the profession knows best" approach. If we do that, I am confident we can have a system which supports the nurturing of children in Ireland who are confident, well motivated, fully rounded and literate and numerate to a level comparable with their peers in the rest of the world.

An important issue for Ireland is children who are resilient, who understand their part as citizens of a democracy, and who can seize opportunities regardless of their background but have the skills and attitude to embrace change throughout their life. It is about the new opportunities and new ways of working and having an agency that will intervene at the earliest possible moment, will be multidisciplinary and will build on the strengths of the family support agency. Without the consent of the community I cannot be as effective as I would wish. It should build on the duties of the educational welfare service to ensure school attendance, and ensure good links with the home to encourage school completion and furthermore to look at projects for alternative education because too many children in Ireland are not receiving an education or when they have a break in their education it takes too long for them to become re-enrolled. We need to look at that jointly with the Department of Education and Skills.

We are uniquely placed to look at the child and family circumstances from a range of perspectives - one child and one plan, but many perspectives and a multidisciplinary approach. This is an agency dedicated to the service of Irish society, aspiring to high standards, particularly for the most vulnerable whom, in the past, we may have let down - an agency for all Ireland's children.

The final appendix, which I did not mention has been widely circulated. It is a draft statement of our central purpose, our vision and our change themes. It outlines values and behaviours that are essential to underpin this activity.