James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the committee for this opportunity address it. I know the Chairman might have a difficult job keeping the unruly visitors in the Visitors Gallery quiet, all one of them.

On a serious note, I am very pleased to update the Joint Committee on Health and Children in support of its quarterly review of my Department's work. Today's meeting provides me with my first opportunity to meet with the committee in my new capacity as Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and I look forward to continued engagement with the committee on the wide range of issues under my Department's remit.
As members know, the former Minister, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, the first Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, fully embraced the role of Minister, setting out her clear intention to implement the commitments in our programme for Government and forging ahead with an important and ambitious agenda. My colleague, Deputy Charlie Flanagan, during his short time in the Department, advanced a number of matters and took a strong leading role in progressing towards a Commission of Inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes. I am determined to continue the momentum that has been created and to press ahead on a range of fronts.
I want to bring the committee up-to-date on the full range of developments in the Department of Children and Youth Affairs over the last quarter. It is now more than six months since the establishment of Tusla, the Child and Family Agency. The establishment of Tusla was notable in many respects, namely, in achieving a significant programme for Government commitment relating to children, in bringing together a range of child and family services into a more cohesive and co-ordinated structure; in ring-fencing funding of €609 million for services for children and families and, crucially, in improving accountability to the Government and the taxpayer, for such services and funding.
In recent weeks my predecessor, Deputy Charlie Flanagan, issued the first performance framework for the consideration of Tusla. The performance framework provides policy guidance, direction and prioritisation parameters for the preparation by its board of the Tusla corporate plan. I expect the outcome of this engagement to be an agreed three-year corporate plan which is both ambitious and achievable. I accept that challenges lie ahead for the agency, which is continuing to progress a range of important service reforms under a comprehensive change agenda.
In regard to the national children detention facilities project, work is continuing on the construction of new facilities at Oberstown in County Dublin. The first three residential units, intended to provide for the transfer of responsibility for 17 year old boys from the adult prison system to Oberstown, will be completed this year. I recently visited the site with my predecessor and we were both very impressed with progress and with the scale and complexity of what is involved. Completion of this project will meet the programme for Government commitment to end the detention of children in prisons, something about which this committee is very concerned. My officials are working with the Public Appointments Service on the associated care staff recruitment programme, with the intention that new staff will be deployed for orientation and training on a staged basis during 2014.
Later in the year, I intend to present a Bill to the Oireachtas to amend certain provisions of the Children Act 2001. This will provide for the merging of the three existing children detention schools into a single legal entity and will also address a number of legal and policy issues associated with managing all children under the age of 18 on that site.
In advance of the appearance of the former Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, before the committee in April, she published the Children First Bill 2014 and subsequently introduced the Bill on Second Stage to the Dáil on 30 April 2014. The Bill will place elements of the Children First National Guidance on a statutory basis and impose a duty on certain specific individuals to report child protection concerns to Tusla. It will also improve child protection arrangements in organisations providing services to children, requiring each to produce an organisation-specific child safeguarding statement.
Child protection must be high on the agenda in all sectors of society and must be in our minds in all our dealings with children. There is no greater testament to this and justification for such an approach than the litany of harrowing reports on child protection that have been published over the past number of years. The children first legislation is designed to complement and enhance a range of established and more recent enactments in the complex arena of child protection. I look forward to engaging with Members of both Houses during the parliamentary process to enact this important piece of legislation.
In April of this year the new National Policy Framework for Children and Young People 2014-2020, entitled Better Outcomes: Brighter Futures, was launched. This is the first overarching national policy framework spanning children and young people from birth to age 24 years. It sets out the Government’s objectives for improving children’s and young people’s lives over the period 2014 to 2020 and how we intend to achieve these objectives. We have worked to establish a shared set of outcomes for children and young people and identify a range of commitments in place across Government and progress these based on a structured, systematic and outcomes-focused approach. There is no doubt that enhancing children's and young people's lives will have long-term positive impacts for the individuals themselves and society in general.
A structure has been established to guide and support the delivery of the framework in the form of a consortium of high level officials from across Departments and agencies, together with key representatives from the soon to be established advisory council, which comprises NGO stakeholders. The consortium, chaired by the Secretary General of my Department, has met on two occasions, most recently last Friday, 11 July. The consortium will report to the Cabinet Committee on Social Policy on this whole of Government approach.
Following completion of Better Outcomes: Brighter Futures, work is continuing on the development of Ireland's first ever early years strategy, which I intend to launch later this year. A total of €3 million in capital funding was set aside in 2014 for community not-for-profit child care services, parent and toddler groups and childminders. On Tuesday of this week, I announced the allocation of €2.5 million to 163 grantees in the community not-for-profit child care sector. This represents funding for essential repairs, maintenance or refurbishment works and also for works to improve energy ratings within facilities.
New national quality standards for early years services will form part of the new regulatory environment and will provide the basis against which services will be inspected and reported on. New training and mentoring supports for services are also being put in place as part of the quality agenda. In March of this year, the former Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, launched a learner fund, totalling €3 million over two years, to support staff in early years services who need to up-skill to meet new qualification requirements.
A national strategy on children and young people's participation in decision-making is being developed under the national policy framework for children and young people and will be published in 2014. Considerable progress has been made in the development of this strategy, including bilateral meetings with key Departments and agencies. Consultation with the non-Government sector is also planned in the coming weeks. I want to welcome the very constructive role played by the Oireachtas and, in particular, by a number of Deputies and Senators on this committee, in engaging with young people through the Comhairle na nÓg representative structures.
One of the national outcomes in Better Outcomes: Brighter Futures is the active and healthy physical and mental well-being of all children. One of the specific aims of realising this outcome is that all children will enjoy play, recreation, sport, arts culture and nature. In this context, national recreation week ran from Monday, 2 June to Sunday, 8 June. The focus for this year's events was on giving young people an opportunity to participate in recreation activities they have never before tried. My Department funded a number of events, which were supported by a network of local authority managers and staff responsible for the local delivery of play and recreation services in communities across the country.
National play day took place on Sunday, 6 July. The aim of national play day is to help increase public awareness of the importance of play in supporting children's physical and social development. The focus for national play day in 2014 was on going out to play and a variety of projects were funded that created opportunities for outdoor play at street, neighbourhood and community level. I want to commend local authority managers and staff for their participation in the various events and the encouragement they offer to children and their families to experience play in their own locality.
In May, the former Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, launched Erasmus+ 2014-2020, the EU's support programme for life-long learning, training and sport. My predecessor welcomed this extensive and valuable new Erasmus+ programme, 10% of which is ring-fenced for activity in the youth field. The youth programme will provide more than €16 million to Ireland over the next seven years and this year alone Ireland will benefit from €2.89 million. Its youth priorities include the promotion of young people's social inclusion and well-being, notably through projects tackling youth unemployment, and the promotion of healthy behaviours, in particular through outdoor activities and grassroots sport. The programme also aims to raise awareness about EU citizenship, rights, active participation of young people and to develop basic and transversal skills - for example, entrepreneurship, digital skills and multilingualism.

It is important that youth organisations nationwide bring forward proposals under the programme in order that as many young people as possible can avail of transnational exchanges and opportunities to enhance their skills, competencies and employability.

The most pressing issue that has arisen since the most recent quarterly meeting with the joint committee is that of mother and baby homes and related matters. This has developed into an issue of national concern and international interest. There is no denying that what we have learned about the deaths of particularly vulnerable young children in such institutions has been very distressing, in particular, the scale of the number of deaths of infants and young children over several decades in the past.

This issue relates to the responsibilities of a range of Departments. Work has been progressing, under the auspices of an interdepartmental group chaired by the Secretary General of my Department, to examine the full scope of the inquiry that will take place into such matters. It is our intention that the inquiry will be established under the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004 and will have all the necessary powers that it requires to ensure full co-operation and the submission of a comprehensive report to Government. The commission of investigation's formal establishment will require a resolution of both Houses. Calls have been made to have many elements considered by the commission and we must agree on appropriate and realistic terms of reference to bring the inquiry to as satisfactory a conclusion as possible.

The Cabinet was updated on Tuesday evening in regard to the work of the interdepartmental group. The Government agreed to the publication of the group's report, which was laid before the Oireachtas yesterday, and also agreed that Judge Yvonne Murphy will chair the commission of inquiry. I am grateful to Judge Murphy for accepting this challenging and important task. I expect it will be the autumn before the terms of reference for the inquiry are agreed and published. I am committed to continuing to engage with Opposition spokespersons in this work and grateful to spokespersons for taking time to discuss this matter with me in recent days. I will report to the Dáil this afternoon on these matters and look forward to statements from Deputies on the subject.

The Government is also committed to improving arrangements for adoption information and tracing. I intend to finalise legislative proposals and refer the general scheme and heads of the adoption (information and tracing) Bill to the committee as soon as possible.

I thank the Chairman for providing me with an opportunity to update the joint committee. A challenging few months lie ahead and I look forward to updating members again in the autumn. Members will appreciate that, as the new Minister, I have had a limited opportunity to read in depth into my brief, notwithstanding my interest in many aspects of the Department's responsibilities over the years. I will endeavour to address members' questions in full and, where an immediate response is not possible, to revert with responses as soon as possible.