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

I thank the committee for this opportunity to discuss the 2014 Revised Estimates for Vote 40 of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

Under the Revised Estimates for 2014, my Department has been allocated funding of €997 million, which includes more than €955 million in current funding and €42 million in capital funding. When appropriation-in-aid receipts of just over €22.8 million are taken into account, the net current funding allocated to my Department in 2014 is €974.3 million. This level of funding represents an increase of more than €558 million on the 2013 Estimate of €439 million. I will explain the reason for this increase later, but it is due largely to the establishment of the Child and Family Agency.

Under the new performance accounting arrangements introduced in 2012, the subhead structure of Vote 40 is based on three new major programme areas: programme A – children and family support programme; programme B – sectoral programmes for children and young people; and programme C – policy and legislation. The largest single component of the increase in the Vote for this year is the establishment of the new Child and Family Agency which, I am glad to say, took effect on 1 January 2014. This is a historic development and a significant milestone in the programme of this Government to fundamentally reform the delivery of services to vulnerable children and families. The level of funding allocated to the agency is over €602 million in current funding and €6.8 million in capital spending. As Deputies will be aware, the key tasks facing the agency include achieving a better management and consistency of approach so as to deliver a world-class Irish service model of child welfare and protection. We all know the legacy. The challenge now is to provide that world class services. While this will not be provided overnight, we are well on the road to achieving it. The establishment of the agency brings together key services relevant to children and families, including child protection and welfare and education services previously provided by the HSE, the Family Support Agency and the National Education Welfare Board. The challenge now is implementation. As I stated, reform of services for children and families will not be achieved overnight and requires a sustained effort to address weaknesses.

The 2014 Estimates provision is for expenditure due for payment in the current year and will not go towards meeting any over-spending or deficits arising in previous years. I acknowledge that there are significant demands on the services for which the Child and Family Agency is responsible. These arise from demographic and social factors, such as alcohol and drugs, and from the fact that people are now more aware of how important it is to intervene and do the best for children. In recognition of these demands, the Government made an additional provision in budget 2014 of €6.7 million, rising to €12 million in a full year, to support the major reform of child welfare and protection services, which is under way. This additional investment will support ongoing reforms which are aimed at improving the quality and capacity of child protection welfare services in response to the historic legacy of failings highlighted in numerous reports and in response to increased demand in child protection referrals. We all know that referrals increased by almost a third in 2012 and 2013 to more than 40,000. It appears at this point that referrals will continue to increase going forward. Our population has increased and the number of children going into care is reflective of that increase. By international standards, we have relatively low numbers of children in care.

I have issued a performance statement to the agency under the Child and Family Act 2013 setting out overall priorities for 2014, and specifically the priorities for the deployment of the additional resources provided. The agency is currently finalising its business plan for 2014. The plan was discussed by the agency's board last week and I expect to receive it shortly. The business plan will detail the use the agency will make of the resources available to it and its plans to recruit key additional staff based on the additional funding provided in the budget. I wish the board of the new agency, led by Ms Norah Gibbons, and all of the staff of the agency, led by the chief executive, Gordon Jeyes, well. A huge amount of work, in terms of establishment of the agency, has been completed, not least by the staff of my own Department. A HR programme has now been put in place following consultation with the trade unions, employers and staff. The transition of the 4,000 staff has been completed and the budget has been separated out.

The free preschool year is expected to cost €175 million in 2014. This is a universal programme and expenditure arising is a function of the number of children in the eligible age range. I was pleased to learn recently from the latest published tranche of the Growing up in Ireland, GUI, study on children aged five in this country that their transition to primary school had in the main been very successful. The researchers also commented on the value of the preschool year in terms of preparing children for school. This information is very helpful. This is the first time we have had a group of children studied in this detail who have made the transition to school having availed of the free preschool year. Some 68,000 or 94% of children eligible for the free preschool year are benefiting from it. Participating service providers are required to implement Síolta and Aistear as much as possible. It is a fundamental principle of the programme that the preschool year is available free to parents.

I am glad we have been able to continue to provide that and obviously I hope to develop it, as I have often said previously.

Funding of child care programmes continues to be a major item of expenditure for the Department. The funding allocation for 2014 amounts to €79.129 million, comprising current expenditure of €75.879 million and capital expenditure of €3.250 million. We subsidise the cost of child care for parents with low income and those who are accessing education and training programmes. We provide for this in the community child care subvention, CCS, and child care education and training support, CETS, programmes, which continue to be rolled out every year. At the meetings of this committee we have commented on the importance of child care to families, and we are anxious to continue the programmes we have. We have been able to achieve some developments as well.

An additional €4 million has been made available to this subhead in 2014 to support the quality agenda for preschool services. Members of the committee are aware, as we have discussed this several times, of the range of actions that have had to be taken in respect of quality in the preschool sector. We are making progress on a number of those elements. That includes legislation to provide for a registration system for preschool services in Ireland, and I thank Deputies in the committee who supported the legislation in the House before Christmas. A further €500,000 in additional funding is being made available to provide for the recruitment of additional preschool inspectors. The Child and Family Agency will work on that. There are a number of preschool inspection reports on the website. The legislative change provided for the statutory registration of preschool services. There are new enforcement powers for the inspectors and there are increased penalties at District Court level for any offence under the Act. The process also involves the preparation of new national preschool quality standards, the recruitment of additional inspectors and increasing the minimum qualification requirements for staff working in preschool services.

The area based childhood programme, co-funded by my Department and Atlantic Philanthropies, will receive an allocation of €4 million in 2014. This is an increase of €1.5 million over the 2013 allocation. It is worth noting that this budget allocation is going to areas where there are huge needs and where children and families need support. I am pleased that this Government has been able to provide a budget of almost €30 million over the period 2013 to 2016. It is half funded by the Department and half funded by Atlantic Philanthropies. I was very pleased to get support from that body because it is finishing its work in this country. It is a recognition of the work that has already been done by the various community groups around the country in this programme that Atlantic Philanthropies has agreed to continue it over the next three years. We will continue with a range of programmes to address literacy, speech therapy, parenting, health and pro-social behaviour. That is being done already in the three sites, Tallaght, Ballymun and Darndale. It will continue in those sites and will be expanded to the extra sites. All of the announcements have been made in that regard. Thirteen sites have entered the programme design stage, which will involve finalising the proposals, to allow them proceed to drawdown and delivery. Service provision will begin to be effective during 2014.

I will comment briefly about progress on the national children's detention facility. The objective is to provide sufficient facilities to enable the child care model of detention to be extended to all under 18 year olds who are ordered to be detained by the courts. That has been a priority for me since my appointment. We do not wish to have young children in a prison setting and the Government has made a decision to provide the capital and resources to develop that project. It is on track to deliver the three new units by the end of 2014. The timetable has been adhered to since the developers went on site. The total multi-annual capital funding for the project is over €56 million and €31 million is being provided in 2014. It will be complete in 2015. We must replace some of the older buildings. The existing detention buildings used by Oberstown Boys School will be replaced with improved education, recreation, security and other facilities. The new manager has been appointed for the facility and I will bring forward the legislation to bring the three units together - the legislation is at a very advanced stage - and to make some other changes in respect of detention.

The national longitudinal study will be continued in 2014, as well as some other research programmes. It is really important that we have data about Irish children and that we are not relying on data from other countries. The longitudinal study has given us a huge amount of data over the last number of years about the progress of Irish children. We can see that approximately 80% of Irish children are doing extremely well on a range of variables, but there is a group of children who are more vulnerable and we must target and work with those young people.

I achieved agreement in budget 2014 to reduce the 2014 saving that had been envisaged by the comprehensive review of expenditure, CRE, for youth services. That has gone from €2.968 million to €1.968 million. That is very significant because Deputies here have expressed concern on many occasions about reductions in funding to youth services. Effectively, it has meant this year that instead of facing reductions of 7% to 10% in income, it is a 3.5% reduction across the board. The youth organisations have told me that this has made a huge difference to them and that they will be able to manage it. It is a help to them in terms of providing front-line services that the extra €1 million that was allocated in the budget for youth services has meant a reduction in the savings that were expected from them.

We have a very full work programme. I am anxious to build on the good work that has been done by both voluntary and State organisations for young people, to continue to reform services and to ensure we deliver the services in the most effective way. There will continue to be reports highlighting areas where improvements can be made. That is the reason we have asked HIQA to inspect so many services. When one reads the HIQA reports one can see improvements in certain areas, and it continues to highlight areas that must be addressed.

I hope this statement is of assistance to the committee and I look forward to the members' input and discussion on these issues.