Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the witnesses for their presentations. I have one overall question for them but will first outline what I have gleaned from today's proceedings. From what Sage Advocacy shared with us, it is clear there is international best practice. It is clear that without reinventing the wheel, we could take on some of what is being done in, for example, Toronto and Scotland. It is imperative that we, as a committee, understand what is successful in these regions and see how we can lift and shift those policies, processes or procedures to make a real difference in Ireland.

I thank all of the social workers throughout Ireland for the tremendous work they do. From the perspective of Ms Geiran and Ms O’Connor, I got a sense of deep frustration from them that reports just identify problems. They identify problems and garner a lot of press and media attention and political commentary, but when the dust settles they do not act as a catalyst for change, which is what everybody across the political divide wants. All of us in different parties share the goal of wanting to change things.

I was struck by what Ms O'Connor said about the lone social worker and how that can be a difficult position to be in if he or she is in a situation where he or she is surrounded by, as she put it, smaller signals of abuse. They, too, need to be identified and called out.

From a HIQA perspective, I am pleased to hear about the move back towards unannounced inspections, that they now happen an awful lot of more and are a priority. Ms Grogan explained the benefits of announced inspections from the perspective of collaboration and access to HIQA by families and service users. However, I think unannounced inspections, unfortunately, often throw up dark cases and it is the dark cases that require intervention.

I was struck by what Professor Kelly said about recruitment and how being under-resourced can lead to a situation where signals of abuse are missed. I was particularly struck by his comment that it is not just retention that is an issue and that there is a need to entice people back from Australia or wherever.

I was also struck by the comment on how difficult it is to do that without a reform package and without being able to show we can provide better support and career opportunities. That leads me to the question I would like to ask all our witnesses. How can we change the culture? Nearly all the witnesses have brought up culture at this point. We have talked about changes that need to happen, institutionalisation, the gap between the criminal justice system and mental health services, the gaps in communication with service users and families, and the gap between PPS numbers and our unique hospital identification numbers. These all boil down to a need for cultural change throughout the HSE, Tusla and other agencies set up to deliver the interventions that the vulnerable absolutely need. My question is a broad one but I would really value all the guests' perspectives on it because the committee needs to understand the practical changes that could help to change the culture and create and implement a better service for all service users.