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

I am pleased to have the opportunity to update the Joint Committee on Health and Children in support of its quarterly review of my Department’s work. I had the opportunity to update the select sub-committee in January on my Department’s Vote, which includes the expenditure allocation for the Child and Family Agency. Officials from my Department also recently attended before the committee to discuss aftercare.

We established the new Child and Family Agency with effect from January. The Taoiseach spoke at the official launch of the agency of this once in a lifetime opportunity to reform and transform the delivery of child and family services in the State. I am very appreciative of the support of the committee and the various stakeholders in establishing this committee. It was a major transition which brought over 4,000 staff in the agency which provides services for children and families, particularly for the over 6,400 children in the care of the State. There was much support from the trade unions and employer groups in this.

We have moved from a position of dispersed responsibilities for this area to a single dedicated agency. For the first time, we have child and family social workers, family support workers, social care workers and educational welfare officers working together. The Child and Family Agency Act 2013 provides the Department with an ongoing high-level involvement in supporting the work of the agency. In my capacity as Minister, I have particular responsibilities in the context of accountability and performance management. In December 2013, I issued a detailed letter of determination and performance statement to the agency. This was to ensure a business plan for 2014 would happen in good time, notwithstanding the agency itself was only formally established on 1 January. The plan has since been approved by me. We are now engaging with the agency to develop its three-year corporate plan. Agency priorities for 2014 include recruiting additional social workers, in line with the additional budget allocations in budget 2014, as well as rolling out new models for caseload and information management. I have always pointed to the lack of national data which would ensure consistency in how individual cases are managed across the country and which would allow workers and clients to know what to expect. It is proposed to commence a three-year plan to double the number of special care places.

Another agency priority for 2014 is to deliver greater efficiencies and savings in legal costs. That is a very challenging and demanding area given the range of cases that are being taken and the decisions of courts regarding particular demands. Another agency priority for 2014 is to introduce 24-hour access to social work services. My officials and I are and will be working closely with the agency through regular meetings and very detailed contact between us, as outlined in the legislation, and as there should be.

As members will be very familiar with aftercare, which they discussed recently, I will not go into detail on it unless there are any particular questions. We will introduce it as soon as possible. The Children First Bill was published last week. It will put elements of the Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children on a statutory basis, which was a key commitment of ours. The Bill will impose a duty on certain specific individuals to report child protection concerns to the Child and Family Agency. It will also improve child protection arrangements in organisations providing services to children, requiring each to produce an organisation-specific child safeguarding statement. The important point is the absolute obligation on a stated group of professionals to report concerns.

I have also built into the legislation the obligation to share information and take part in risk assessment. This has not been picked up on much but is very important. From many of the reports on children, we know that proper risk assessment was not done. I have also built into the legislation the requirement for the agency to give feedback. Principals around the country often raise with me that they would like more consistent feedback from the agency. This is about the agency being a good partner to people when they report concerns, and we have given this a statutory underpinning. The legislation will ensure a stronger child protection ethos in all sectors of society. The Children First guidelines still apply. There is an obligation on everyone who is aware of concerns regarding abuse and neglect to report them. We still receive more than 40,000 referrals every year.

Another important initiative that has not received much coverage is an interdepartmental group we have established on a statutory basis with representatives from every Department, chaired by Department staff. To give one example, if issues arise in sporting organisations, there will be representatives of that Department on the committee, which will examine the implementation of Children First in sporting organisations at a national level. I pay tribute to the GAA, the FAI and the Irish Sports Council for the work they have done in child protection. They have done extraordinary work over the last few years, even before Children First was on a statutory basis. They have put in much time, energy and training. I have been to a number of events where 200 or 300 volunteers working in this area came forward for training from the organisations and agencies which are taking child protection in their services very seriously, as they should. This is very reassuring for parents.

Yesterday I launched the new child and family framework document, Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures. As I said, it takes more than one reading. Much work has gone into this whole-of-government approach to dealing with issues on children and stating Government commitments. It is the first time every commitment that is already in place for children has been articulated in one document. We have captured the obligations and commitments to children of every Department from page 127 onwards. We have also looked at the range of commitments from now to 2020. It is a very comprehensive statement of a whole-of-government approach to getting better outcomes for children and articulating the current state of Irish children and what we know now. It is very research-driven and outcomes-driven and is a very clear statement of the Government's goals for our children, working with statutory and voluntary organisations. It takes more than one sitting to grasp everything in this document. It is very comprehensive. The Taoiseach and Tánaiste launched it with me yesterday. It is a shared set of outcomes for children and young people and identifies a range of commitments that are already in place across the Government and that need to be in place.

I have updated the committee on the early years strategy before. We are working on a new high-level parenting and family support policy, which will be published this year and which will guide the work of the Child and Family Agency and the resource centres and inform grant funding. We want to give money to projects that are effective in this area of parenting and family support. There is great interest from parents throughout the country in accessing the various programmes. We hope to have most of the area-based childhood, ABC, programmes up and running. This is a €30 million commitment by the Government in 12 areas around the country to do very intensive work with families in the early stages of their children's lives. It has been researched very carefully and we have good information on what is effective in working with families in the early years and on programmes that have not worked.

Some 2,500 preschool inspections are published on the Pobal website, and that is a resource for parents who want to ensure the highest standards are being applied to their children's care. Major challenges remain regarding quality in preschools. There is a legacy of under-investment in quality and training. The sector is far from highly paid, and staff qualifications are increasing. We must put more focus on ensuring that in our early years child care settings quality is centre stage. We must build in supports for that. A total of €3 million was pledged in last year's budget for the new learner fund, which will ensure staff are heavily subsidised for training.

Regarding detention facilities, the specialist service has started. A care staff recruitment programme has been sanctioned by the Government, posts have been advertised and new staff will be employed. This is going through the Commission for Public Service Appointments.

Many concerns have been expressed regarding the state of adoption records in the country. There is a job to be done, both legislative and administrative, in managing and organising the adoption files so people can have timely access to them. It is a very big job, because the records are all over the country. We will bring in legislation to ensure it is on a statutory footing and that people who have records will have to make them available to statutory authority. I ask Deputies who are asked about adoption records to promote the adoption contact preference register. There are still people out there who do not know it exists. An adoptee or a parent who has given up a child for adoption who wants to make contact should, in the first instance, ensure his or her name is on the adoption contact preference register. I have ongoing work to do regarding the adoption (information and tracing) Bill. As I have given much detailed information in the House about that I will not repeat it here but if people have questions I am happy to answer them.

The priorities this year include the completion of the development of the national child detention facilities. Work there is proceeding. The building of many of the units is well advanced. If anybody cares to see the facilities as they develop, I would be very happy to facilitate that. I want to support the work and development of the newly established agency. We need to give it time to breathe and settle down and find the most effective work practices. I will amend the Child Care Act in respect of aftercare, as this committee has discussed. I will launch Ireland's first early-years strategy and a policy on family support and parenting. We will continue with the quality agenda in child care.

This is complex. No one initiative will make a difference. It is not simply about more inspectors but about training, qualifications, parental involvement, management responsibility and a whole range of factors.

We have taken a range of steps to drive the quality agenda and to enhance the preservation and management of, and access to, adoption records. We are also conducting a review of the current child care schemes, ECCE and CET, to consider how best to structure child care support to both support working families and incentivise labour market activation. I would like to expand those schemes as resources allow. They are resource-intensive in that they provide various subsidies to families. I hope that gives an idea of the range of work being done by the Department and myself.