Ms Deirdre O'Shea:

Deputy McLellan will be aware that in the context of the Children First investigation there were a number of concerns about the liaison between the Garda and the HSE. We made recommendations about that to both the HSE and the Garda at the time. We met with the Garda, although it is not part of our investigative remit, and we had a positive response from it on the recommendations made.

One of the issues raised was about the need for the formal liaison structures that were recommended as part of the Children First guidance. One of our recommendations in the Children First investigation was the need for external inspection to look at how those mechanisms were taking place, in particular aspects such as strategy meetings, liaison management meetings and notifications. We are pleased that since we have concluded the investigation, HIQA has now commenced inspection of the HSE - now Child and Family Agency - social work services. I hope that will give some oversight on the level of co-ordination that is occurring with An Garda Síochána.

The response we got was a commitment to improved communication and a number of mechanisms were put in place. An Garda Síochána and the Child and Family Agency are meeting at a senior level to look at the overall issues because one of the things we found was that it required both senior management to meet to address the issues but also that local liaison should occur on individual case referrals. We had a positive response to the recommendation.

We made seven recommendations following the investigation into the social services in the north Lee area. The first was about external inspection because while we can look at an individual complaint, our key concern was about the need to inspect the overall service provision that was occurring in the area and that required review of case files which was more appropriate for HIQA to look at. We also made recommendations about the need to review the north Lee area because of the high referral rate, the difficulty in responding to cases in a timely manner and the level of unallocated cases. We saw during the course of our investigation that a number of steps were taken to look at additional supports that could be put in place as well as looking at the response to referrals when they first occurred. The critical issue was about how resources are matched to need and a need for ongoing monitoring in that regard.

One of the changes the Child and Family Agency introduced – it was the HSE at the time – was a "measuring the pressure" project which allowed monthly reporting through to the national office that gave information about the level of the referral rate and also about the number of unallocated cases. There were still concerns on these aspects during the course of the investigation but there was better oversight and monitoring by the national office in order to develop strategies for dealing with the issues that arose.

We also made a number of other recommendations, a number of which pertained to issues relating to social work caseload management. Some of the actions are still ongoing because we understand that work is still occurring in that regard but we thought it was important to report to the Oireachtas so that it is aware of the kinds of issues we were highlighting in terms of social work service provision.