Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 26 June 2025
Committee on Children and Equality
Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children
2:00 am
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Apologies have been received from Deputies Dempsey and Ward, and Senators Cosgrove and Bradley. The agenda item for consideration this morning is an engagement with Dr. Niall Muldoon, Ombudsman for Children. Accompanying Dr. Muldoon is Ms Nuala Ward, director of investigations and Dr. Tricia Keilthy, head of policy. They are very welcome. The purpose of this meeting is to gain insight into the priority topics and issues facing the Office of the Ombudsman for Children and to discuss the annual report for 2024 entitled Tomorrow Starts With Us, in keeping with the theme for its 20th anniversary as chosen by its youth advisory panel. The report makes for stark reading but it was great to acknowledge that some progress was made. I am really looking forward to the engagement today. We need to treat this report as an action plan for urgent access to address these issues.
As this is Dr. Muldoon's first meeting with the newly established committee, I will take the opportunity to thank him for the work he continuously does both with the children of Ireland and for the manner in which he advocates on their behalf. The service provided by the Office of the Ombudsman for Children is a really invaluable service. This committee is looking forward to working with him closely in the coming years on various matters that impact the children of Ireland and that fall under his office's remit.
Before we begin, I have a few housekeeping matters to go through. I advise all that the chat function on MS Teams should only be used to make the team on site aware of any technical issues or urgent matters that may arise and should not be used to make general comments or statements during the meeting. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex to participate in public meetings. I will not permit members to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any members partaking via MS Teams, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, to confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.
In advance of inviting them to deliver their opening statements, I advise the witnesses that they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentation they make to the committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege, and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
Dr. Muldoon will be allocated five minutes to deliver his opening statement, which will be followed by a question and answer session with our members.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
I thank the Chair for her kind words. I really appreciate them. I thank the committee for inviting us to discuss Tomorrow Starts with Us, our annual report for 2024. I am joined today by director of investigations, Ms Nuala Ward and head of policy, Dr. Tricia Keilthy.
The Ombudsman for Children’s office is an independent statutory body with two main duties, namely, to deal with complaints made by, or on behalf of, children about the actions of public organisations, and to promote the rights and welfare of children under 18 living in Ireland. Last year we celebrated our 20th anniversary. The office was established in 2004 by the Ombudsman for Children Act 2002 and our annual report for 2024 reflects this milestone year for our office.
We believe anniversaries like these are important, because as well as providing us with an opportunity to pause and reflect on what’s come before, they provide a fresh impetus to focus on the future. This is highlighted for us through our 20th anniversary theme of Tomorrow Starts with Us, which was decided upon with the help of our brilliant youth advisory panel and reminds us of our raison d’être in working towards a better tomorrow for all children in Ireland.
In 2024, the office continued to receive a high volume of complaints about children’s public services, with a total of 1,772 contacts about complaints made to our office last year. The complaints we receive are becoming more complex, with almost one in five relating to more than one agency, and a third relating to multiple categories of concern. As in previous years, education remains the most complained about issue to our office, with 33% of all complaints relating to education. This is followed by Tusla at 19% and complaints about children’s health services at 15%.
Throughout 2024, we engaged with almost 2,500 children through our rights education workshops and school visits around the country. Some 63% of these schools were DEIS schools, a 14% increase on 2023, and nearly two thirds of the schools that travelled to our office came from outside Dublin. Last year we also delivered workshops directly through the Irish language to three gaelscoileanna and continued important outreach work in direct provision and accommodation centres, Oberstown Children’s Detention Campus, CAMHS inpatient units and community and voluntary centres throughout the country.
We marked our 20th anniversary last year with a number of events and publications. This included two wonderful children’s parties at the Swan Youth Service, St. Agatha’s Hall in Dublin’s north-east inner city and at the Mayfield Sports Centre in Cork city. We also joined up with Mary Immaculate College, Thurles for a three-day summer school celebrating youth voices in education and carried out a survey of over 1,000 secondary school children on the issues facing them today and the Ireland they would like to see in the future. We found that the same issues at the forefront of public discourse are some of those same issues that worry our young people such as the cost of living, future housing needs and access to mental health services, yet these are not necessarily treated as children’s issues at decision-making tables.
Our annual report for 2024 also highlights our concern that children seeking international protection are still living in insecure and unregulated settings and that, despite long-standing recommendations, HIQA still does not have remit to inspect emergency accommodation centres. We also feature case studies that demonstrate some of the complaints and subsequent issues dealt with by our office. These include the case of six-year-old Enda, an anonymised name, whose mother contacted us when he was locked in a room at school due to his disruptive behaviour. Enda’s story highlights the importance of strong guidelines around behaviours of concern at school, which our office has engaged with the Department of education on throughout the year. We also outline how we managed to get a change to the eligibility criteria in the application form for the long-term illness scheme for children with ADHD. That has made a huge difference for families who contacted us when they were told they were not eligible.
What is striking for us is that 20 years since the Office of the Ombudsman for Children was established, many of the same issues for children are still coming up today. In 2004, 177 complaints were received and approximately 17% related to access to services for children with disabilities. That is still an issue. This shows us that while there has undoubtedly been progress for children on many fronts, the consistency of the issues raised 20 years apart reinforces the need to properly place children’s rights, all of them, at the fore of policy decisions and service provision. That is why our office is committed to driving our campaign for the full and direct incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC, into domestic law.
Incorporation is the most important thing we can do to protect and safeguard the rights of all children in Ireland. Every issue we highlight in our annual report before the committee today leads us back to the need to give real force to the international obligations we have already signed up to. This is nothing new; we have already committed to these rights. It will put children and their rights at the heart of every decision within the public service and Civil Service and gives us a stronger basis to ensure we are keeping our promises to children. For example, if five years ago the State had to come up with a child and family-focused homeless strategy, would there still be 4,775 children in emergency accommodation today? If our recommendations around scoliosis as a children’s rights issue as far back as 2017 were made against a backdrop of direct incorporation, would there be the same crisis as there is today?
As Ombudsman for Children I am exasperated and utterly dismayed at the persistent chronic issues around access to affordable housing for children and families, and at the unacceptable delays in access to vital surgeries and assessment of need. In a country as well-off as Ireland economically, we must surely be able to better funnel our resources into where they are needed most. If a society is judged on how we treat our most vulnerable, what does our record on these issues say about us?
I have previously said that we are now at a crossroads in what can be achieved for children and in the current climate of uncertainty and change, it is more important than ever for the State to bed down its commitment on children’s rights. Therefore our office will continue to push for the rights of children to be the signpost that is followed at all times. By doing that we can bring to life the Government’s promise to make Ireland the best place in Europe for children to grow up.
I will now outline a list of priorities to steer the committee. The incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is a priority. There should be an exploration of the resources Tusla has to fulfil its mandate across all issues for which it has responsibility, including children in care and child protection. As I mentioned earlier, the three issues that children want us to look at are mental health, housing, cost of living and poverty, which go together as one. Those are the issues I would love the committee to be looking at. I thank members for their time today and we look forward to any questions.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I thank Dr. Muldoon. It is proposed to publish the opening statement on the Oireachtas website. Is that agreed? Agreed. Before I call members, I remind them that they will be allocated seven minutes' speaking time. They will all be happy to see that our clock is back up and working. This allocation must include the response from the witnesses. If time permits at the end, I will allow a brief second round of questioning. However, members should indicate to me if they wish to ask additional questions. When putting their questions, I ask that members ensure they strictly adhere to the agenda topics under consideration at this meeting. I will now call on members in accordance with the speaking rota circulated. I ask members participating via Microsoft Teams to confirm they are on the Leinster House campus before putting their questions. The first speakers are Senator Murphy O'Mahony, Senator Keogan and Deputy Farrelly.
Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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Dr. Muldoon, Dr. Keilthy and Ms Ward are very welcome here this morning. I also wish to acknowledge the presence in the Gallery of Ms Carragher and Ms McGreal. I will start by thanking them for the fantastic work they have done over the past two decades. I am very impressed with the title of the report, Tomorrow Starts with Us, because the work they are doing today will shape the tomorrow for our young people. It is much harder to be young now than it was in my time. Young people now face many extra hassles that were not there in my time. I wish those in the Ombudsman for Children's Office luck and congratulate them on the work they do. The office has gone through 1,770 cases lately and obviously people trust it, which is great. I also commend the office's outreach work. It is not just waiting for people to come to it, it is going to them. Well done on that.
What are the key legislative or administrative barriers preventing HIQA from inspecting emergency accommodation for children in international protection?
Ms Nuala Ward:
That is a really good question and one we would also love to have the answer to. As the Senator knows, HIQA has provision to monitor international protection services that are State funded or State owned, which represents only about 35% of direct provision services in the country so there is a huge gap. We have gone out to many of these emergency centres. We have done a huge amount of work on direct provision and we remain deeply concerned about the quality of the accommodation being provided to these children and families. We have gone out and seen mould and dirt and have seen families not able to cook. All these issues impact greatly on children, not only their health but also mental well-being. We believe that HIQA as a regulator should be given remit over these emergency accommodations as quickly as possible to help to drive up the standards and ensure there are robust child protection and safeguards for children in these centres.
Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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How can this committee support the Ombudsman for Children's Office in advancing the case for direct incorporation of the UNCRC into Irish law?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
We would be delighted were the committee in a position to support that concept. Scotland brought in a law last July, just short of 12 months ago. It needed cross-party unanimity to ensure it happened and that is what we need to do. This committee could take a lead in that regard in ensuring we all see the value of having this underpinning all the work we do across the Civil Service. Were the committee in a position to support that and make recommendations in that way, it would greatly support us because it would mean we would have a strong basis within the Oireachtas to help us push forward with that. Even with unanimity, it will take five or six years to get the Bill through. The idea would be to create a Bill that would just incorporate every single piece of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into domestic law and that would be the end of that, as opposed to the Government currently saying that it will update each piece of law separately and 33 years later it has not done it.
Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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Going back to the case of the little boy - I know that is not his real name - how can the Department of education be encouraged to implement strong national guidelines on managing behaviours of concern in schools? I imagine there are concerns on all sides there.
Dr. Tricia Keilthy:
It is a concern for us in ensuring we have a child rights focus in how schools are given guidelines on managing behaviours of concern. We are engaging with the Department of education on guidelines. We want to see greater independent oversight to ensure that schools comply with the guidelines in order that we can ensure children are safe and supported in the school environment. There also need to be adequate supports through early intervention so that schools only have to use them as a last resort. It is really important that they are supported in that way.
Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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What patterns are emerging in complaints about Tusla? Do they indicate gaps in co-ordination with other child services?
Ms Nuala Ward:
This is a common theme and something we have raised on countless occasions. Children, especially children in care, need all services to work together. Children are in care for a reason. They have suffered neglect and abuse, which is why they have been taken into State care. Tusla, of course, has a fundamental role. We can think of Tusla as a parent. None of us can look after a child without other services, such as schools, healthcare, mental health services and everything that is needed in order to raise a happy fulfilled child. That is why it is imperative that other services come to the table.
The Senator may know that we published an investigation into a little boy, whom we call Jack. Jack was in hospital for two and a half years beyond medical need because the HSE and Tusla could not work together to agree what he needed. We published a follow-up report entitled Nowhere to Turn. Some parents of children with disabilities who are struggling are showing up at emergency departments in hospitals or leaving their children behind in respite centres not because they do not love them - they love them the same as any other parent - but because they cannot cope.
Parents could cope if they had services and respite services. We need the HSE and Tusla to work together and not take each other to court to see who is responsible for the provision of services. That is one of our most critical aims. We will continue to fight for good strong interagency co-operation in the best interests of children.
Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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That is very important going forward.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I welcome the witnesses and thank Dr. Muldoon for his statement this morning.
The ombudsman has the statutory obligation to serve and safeguard the children in Ireland. However, we have badly let down the children who are homeless, in poverty, awaiting timely healthcare, in State care, the migrant children who are missing and our own children who are missing. There are so many issues that I want to raise with the witnesses this morning and I hope they will bear with me because I am very passionate about some of the topics that I will speak about.
I welcome the report on the children death review in April and I want to speak about the UCD report of 2023 but I will start by asking a number of questions.
My first question is on gender self-identification and consent. In the submission to the LGBTI+ inclusion strategy, the Ombudsman for Children’s Office expressed unequivocal support for gender self-identification laws, including their extension to minors under the age of 16. Has the office considered the concerns raised regarding such laws, particularly the ability of children and adolescents to give informed consent to significant legal and medical changes?
On gender-affirming care for minors, the office voiced support for what effectively amounts to increased assess to so-called gender-affirming care for minors. Has the office considered the potential risks and long-term impact of treatments such as puberty blockers, mastectomies and hormone replacement therapy, especially given that many clinicians argue that these interventions remain experimental? Furthermore, has the office considered the implications of the irreversibility of such treatments for those who later choose to de-transition?
In 2022, the Cass review, which was an independent investigation commissioned by the NHS, found that the Tavistock gender identity development service was not a safe or viable long-term option yet over a year later, the Ombudsman for Children’s Office released a statement expressing concerns about the absence of similar services in Ireland. Has the office taken into account the findings of the Cass review and the Tavistock controversy when advocating for the establishment of such services here?
Between 2009 and 2023, as many as 240 children were referred to Tavistock by the HSE. Of those, 182 were aged 15 or younger and 58 were aged 16 or older. Twice as many girls as boys were referred and as of 2023, 72 Irish children remained on the Tavistock waiting lists. Given the growing number of individuals reporting irreversible negative outcomes post treatment, has the Ombudsman for Children’s Office undertaken or has it considered undertaking a review of the impact of those referrals?
I am shocked it actually took Professor Donal O'Shea and Dr. Paul Moran to challenge the HSE's referral of young people for assessment to this clinic. That is the role of Dr. Muldoon. It should not be left to clinicians to do this. Dr. Muldoon is there to protect these children. Has the Ombudsman for Children’s Office received any complaints about children being prematurely or inappropriately referred or assigned to gender-affirming care? Does Dr. Muldoon believe that his public position on this issue may be perceived as a bias, potentially discouraging individuals with concerns from approaching his office? For example, I was quite shocked to see that Ombudsman for Children's Office premises is shared with BelonG To, which raises questions about the office's neutrality on youth services.
On the issue of climate advocacy and budget allocations, the Ombudsman for Children’s Office annual report 2024 notes that the office advocates for the integration of children's rights into the climate action plan 2024, participation in the Eco-UNESCO Earth Gala via the youth advocacy panel, YAP, and developing the office's first ever climate action roadmap. Please give a breakdown of how much of the annual budget of the office was allocated to these activities. Does Dr. Muldoon believe that these climate-related activities fall within the core remit of his office? Given that the climate policy and the appropriate societal response remains subject to ongoing debate, does Dr. Muldoon not think that taking a public stance on such issues risks compromising the perceived neutrality of his office? Finally, does Dr. Muldoon believe that the resources allocated to climate advocacy and related events might have been more effectively applied in addressing complaints and casework, particularly given the volume and complexity of issues raised by children and families? We will start with those questions.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Dr. Muldoon will do his best to reply in the time remaining.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
From our point of view, there is a commitment on all public services to look at the climate impact that they have through their offices and the work that they do so that is why we would have engaged in that. I do not have the budget figures involved but they would have been minor. A small amount of money would have been spent in that regard. We continuously analyse our own impact as an office, which is what we report on and it is a statutory obligation to report that in our annual report. I do not think that we in any way diverted important funding away from the core work that we do in that regard.
On neutrality as regards issues, we are a public office and our office is run by the OPW. We offer our office to be available to any organisation that deals with and works with children. Lots of organisations use our office at various different times.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Does the scoliosis society have an office in the premises?
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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What about any health organisation or disability group?
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Senator, please allow Dr. Muldoon to reply.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
We do not share an office with anybody. What we do is we allow our office to be used on an occasional basis by various different people. BelonG To has used it at different times but so too has Tusla, children in hospital organisations, and various different organisations of Habitat. So it has been used by various different organisations that work with children. Children's Rights Alliance would use it. It is free and available.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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BelonG To has listed the office as a location.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I might give a second round of questions or people can finish questions.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Dr. Muldoon has not answered my questions.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank the delegation for giving of their time. I will begin by wholeheartedly commend the work done by the Ombudsman for Children’s Office in partnership with so many other wonderful organisations like BelonG To, which does incredible work to amplify the voice of children and young people when it comes to rights in this country. I fully commend what the office continues to do.
In preparation for this meeting I was struck by the fact that we are seeing a lot of headlines. For example, over the last number of months it is expected that there will be 100,000 potential referrals to Tusla. There are 100,000 children experiencing consistent poverty in Ireland in 2024, close to 5,000 children experiencing homelessness and just under 2,000 complaints to the Ombudsman for Children’s Office in the last year. There is probably no scope for hypothetical questions but I will do it anyway. I wonder if we really heard the voices of those children and young people and if we really valued their experiences who are being so systematically traumatised just by growing up in this country, would our social policy better reflect those experiences? Dr. Muldoon will not have time to answer my question and I am not going to put it to him.
This morning, we have seen media reports on Tusla. Earlier Ms Ward said that Tusla was like a parent. I was a youth worker for many years and Tusla was a safety net for many children and young people. Now, Tusla is looking to sign a €1 million contract for hiring security guards to work in residential care if and when issues of violence happen. What are Dr. Muldoon's thoughts about such potential infringements on children and young people's rights?
I will touch on the Deputy's hypothetical. If the Government was to listen to children the solutions would be much easier and much better, because they do not ask for too much. They always ask for what is fair and equitable. That is something and it is why we want the incorporation of the UN convention. It forces every organisation and every Department, all 18 of them, to listen to children and get the solutions.
From the Tusla point of view, as far as we are concerned we have had a rowing back in the support Tusla provides to people and that is a really big shame. There are approximately 5,800 children in care. If you are talking about hiring security guards then you are missing the whole point of what Tusla is supposed to provide. It is supposed to provide care and safety and that is supposed to be done in a professional setup that involves social workers and properly qualified care people, but we have so many children, up to 300 a year, going through the special emergency accommodation setting that any one of us who had to live through that and be provided with care through that system could end up being violent. You could really get traumatised by it. Sometimes the children are just sitting there with no education and no interaction. It is just a security guard, a social worker or an agency worker who might only be social care providing them with just a presence. We are not providing properly for those children in the way we should do. The hiring of security guards is a real negative step backwards, unfortunately, and I hope this does not come to fruition. As far as we are concerned, €1 million could go a long way on more appropriate care. There are a lot of flaws in the way Tusla is doing work and the way we are providing for the more difficult children we have. That can be seen in the special care situation with the loss of the high-support units and the fact we have gone from 95% foster care support down to 88% foster care support. There are a range of children there who are now falling. There is either special care or foster care and in between is really not catered for properly. There is a lot of work to be done there and that is why we have asked members to put Tusla down as something to look at to ensure it is getting the full resources and appropriate services so it can provide.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Dr. Muldoon mentioned trends in issues that are coming to his office, whether that is education, Tusla or children's health. We engaged with the office through youth work quite often and they were always fantastic experiences. Would Dr. Muldoon accept there is probably a level of agency or support required to even get to a place of making that complaint to his office? Notwithstanding the very impressive outreach work that happens, is there more the State could do, or budgets could do, to further enhance this? I imagine Dr. Muldoon would agree the 1,700 figure is probably a decimal fraction of the issues out there. How could we progress that work even further to amplify those voices?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
The Deputy is 100% right. Children will find it very difficult to come to us directly, so they are very much relying on adults in their lives to help them with that. That is why only 3% of our complaints come from children directly. We would love to see our work, but also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, within the curriculum so children understand from a very young age that they have rights, what those rights are and who protects those rights. That would set up a societal change so that over years people would understand those rights immediately and that is something we would like to move forward. Then there is the education of adults. We try to do outreach to trainee psychologists, teachers, social workers and social care professionals as they are the sort of people who will interact with children. There is other work we could do from that point of view.
Ms Ward may have other stuff as well.
Ms Nuala Ward:
It is a really well-made point and one of the key priorities the UN has for every state is that each is obliged to ensure children and their families are fully aware of their right to access justice and appropriate remedies. We are one of those options. We are free and we are independent. In other countries there is an obligation for all agencies, including schools, hospitals and housing agencies, to have it embedded in their complaints procedures that people can go to the office of the ombudsman for children and to the childcare commissioner. We are a small office and it would be a huge burden on us to try to amplify our voice, but if everyone could step into that space it would be fantastic for the children of Ireland.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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That is interesting. I thank the Chair.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for being here and for their opening statement. I have been looking through their annual report at some of the complaints they have received. On the complaints that are outside the office's remit, I understand some of them relate to preschool. I would like to know what is the remainder of that roughly 10%. What else is it made up of in terms of what is outside the remit? I would also like an update because in the office's report it says it is continuing to engage with the Department on the early years and that sector not being within its remit. I would like to know where that is going and what progress is being made to include it.
What also stood out to me in the report was the correspondence the office has which is not a complaint. It states there has been an 88% rise in child protection and welfare concerns received in 2024. Will the witnesses give us a little more detail on that, insofar as they can?
On the engagement the office has in our schools with the rights education workshops, will the witnesses give us a flavour of what is involved in those? It is a really sad indictment that in 2025 children want the office to take action and prioritise the cost of living, mental health, housing and poverty. Children should not have a care in the world. I was fortunate enough not to and to be able to grow up carefree. The idea children in Ireland are worried about poverty and the cost of living, and that obviously a lot of them will see pressure on their parents in that regard, is a really sad indictment of our State.
An issue I have raised a number of times with the Minister is the report done for Tusla reviewing special care and I would like to get the witnesses' views on that if possible. My read of it was that it was almost a cry for help about the other State agencies not being at the table or doing what they should. My other read, and it is only that, was we are putting children into special care and it is almost like we think putting them in there is fine. A number of the children going in there have addiction and mental health issues for which there are no supports, so what is the point in that? It makes no sense. Again, my read of it was special care is being used but it is not always for the benefit and support of the child and that is really concerning, especially when the special care beds are limited. There is the idea children are going in there and not actually being able to get access. Then I can almost understand why, unfortunately, Tusla is looking at security personnel. The report said they were in place and were removed, but there are serious incidents towards staff in those special care settings, some of which I have been made aware of, so I can almost understand that even though it is terrible and should not happen. If these are children who are being put in a place where they are not getting the supports, that is really bad for the child and obviously there is a wider impact from that on staff as well.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
Maybe I will start with the special care. The Deputy is right there is a cry for help there. The system is bulging. It is not capable. I think there are 26 beds and only 14 open. Tusla has said there is nobody waiting at the moment but I would be very surprised if there were not children on the edge of special care and the edge of care. We see parents taking Tusla to court to bring their child into special care. There is something wrong with our system there where Tusla is then going to court to fight to not bring a child in. It is also going to court to say its statutory obligation is to bring children into care but it is going to ignore that if it does not have a bed. That seems like children are not at the centre of the thinking. We are spending money in the High Court as opposed to putting those beds in place. We also know special care is meant to be a three-month intensive therapeutic environment to get children turned around and moved out again with a maximum of three stays for a total of nine months. There are children there for two years, so for them therapeutic change has moved to institutionalisation. They have lost motivation. They wonder why they would move and why would they do anything, because they are not going to be moved anyway. We have no step-down. That whole system is something we need to start looking at to see whether we are investing in the right places pre and post special care.
If I move backwards, the Deputy is right it is a sad indictment that children are worried about the cost of living and housing. It is there and it is real but the adults are forgetting. They keep talking about it and the Government keeps talking about it as if it is not impacting children.
Deputy Farrelly talked about 100,000 children in poverty and 100,000 children being referred to Tusla. They are real people around our country. There are only 1.25 million children in Ireland. A big percentage of them are being impacted by all of these things. Mental health might not affect them but it is impacting friends of all of them. Children know their friends are anxious or concerned and cannot get into the primary care psychology services. There is a real awareness among children and that is why we have to listen them. That is why we have to do what they ask us to do.
The right to education workshops are a fantastic piece of work. It is a wonderful thing to be involved in. We simply ask the children whether they were in their own bedroom when they got out of bed that morning and whether they put on their school uniform, went downstairs and had breakfast. We ask whether they got a lift to school from their mother or father. Most of them will say "Yes" to a lot of that stuff. We tell them that before they even came to school they had a right to privacy, a family, a house, food and education. That starts their awareness growing. We ask whether there are children they know who do not have that. That is the sort of work we do and it raises people's awareness.
As regards the question on complaints and the other ones, I will pass over to Ms Ward.
Ms Nuala Ward:
On the complaints that are out of our remit, they include a range of matters. For example, we get complaints about private family court matters. That is not within our remit. Unfortunately, clinical judgment is not within our remit and that is a problem for some families. We also get contacted with complaints about the Garda but obviously that is for Fiosrú, the Garda ombudsman.
The Deputy is absolutely right to raise the issue of crèche complaints. We do not have any remit in respect of private crèches but we continuously get complaints from very upset, distraught parents who have nowhere to go when they have a serious complaint about a crèche. As the committee knows, Tusla has a regulatory oversight role of these crèches, similar to HIQA, but it does have any remit to look at individual complaints. We get complaints about children who are being expelled. I use the word "expelled" to reflect the educational settings that our early years settings are supposed to be. There is no fairness of procedure and no right of appeal. We also have parents who are very upset about some of the welfare issues they may be facing.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe. Tá brón orm; two questions came up early. The fault was not mine, it was actually the fault of those who did not show up for theirs. We have all been dealing with issues of children and children's rights. From time to time, there is a need to absolutely ensure these are fulfilled. That is not always the case. The witnesses have spoken about the necessity of a family homelessness strategy. There are varying issues. Sometimes the witnesses have to deal with them. They talked about cases where some children are not necessarily getting their rights from an educational perspective, particularly with regard to their disabilities and all the rest. There is then the issue of those who grow up in abject disadvantage and poverty. At times, if you pick particular eircodes in this State, you will have embedded poverty, multigenerational poverty and the issues of crime, addiction and all the rest of it. Some children just get dealt a really poor hand.
We had the Children's Rights Alliance in here and it spoke of the necessity of having specialised health nurses, and I think there is a plan for that. The idea was that every child and every family would have access to such a nurse and problems could be caught early. I suspect Dr. Muldoon's view is that we have an insufficient number of interventions and family support inventions that are absolutely necessary. If we could have some of these in play, we might not need Tusla to do some of the more difficult pieces later. I have my own view and, as much as it is within Tusla's remit that first and foremost family units should be maintained, I have seen many circumstances where I do not believe this was utterly beneficial for the children or the wider family. In the end, children ended up being taken away but that was after a lot of harm had been done. In some of those cases, I would be very worried about the long term impact of that.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
On the idea of early intervention, the Deputy listed the issues that can mean children find themselves in need of Tusla intervention or being taken into care. If you start at the very moment they are born, the public health nurse is the first line of defence, as such. We are losing those nurses. That intervention is not happening as regularly as it used to happen. They were the only professional who met a child immediately. Every single child in the population was met by a public health nurse. That is much more limited now than it was previously. We are now getting much more prioritisation of what public health nurses do and whom they go to see. Parents are asked to bring their child to a GP. We know the population has changed and parents might not necessarily trust GPs, they may not know the GP or they may not have a GP. Those children are in that disadvantaged, vulnerable area already and we are not giving State intervention at the very start to pick up on things that could be problematic but could easily be fixed as well. That early intervention is crucial. The prevention, partnership and family support programme from Tusla is crucial as well and I do not think we invest enough in that to prevent children coming out of the family.
I take the Deputy's point there may be situations where children should be out earlier. That will always be a line that has to be walked but we have to invest more in preventing the child from going into care. That should always be the last resort. Tusla is perhaps where we need to go upstream and put much more investment into where the child has been identified. Issues can be identified by a public health nurse or a GP, or by a teacher if the child is four or five years of age. There is early intervention recognition but we are missing out on providing the support that goes with it. Children then come into care at a later stage when it is much more difficult to deal with. It is much more difficult to get foster parents and residential centres. Some residential centres are private and will not take the more difficult children.
One problem nests on top of another. We can identify it and see it. Now is the time to stand up and invest in the prevention of it. There is a lot of work to be done and the Deputy has highlighted very well that we need to try to break out of that embeddedness. We can do that through early intervention so that the child is supported. Obviously, the parents need to be supported to allow the child to come back as well. We are changing the narrative for both sides and that will be a hugely important piece, if we can do it.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That is it. I remember a person who said they worked in support services at one point spoke about a particular scenario. They said they did probably just enough to keep the kid out of care but they were not necessarily sure that was enough because the circumstances were not perfect. I accept that, first and foremost, it is about putting in the early interventions that Dr. Muldoon spoke about. Obviously, we should avoid as much as possible the need for people to go into special care arrangements or foster care. You can never have enough foster carers and I tip my hat to the 99% of foster carers who are out there doing spectacular work. The rules need to be looked at, not only as regards payments and expenses for them but also what they are sometimes forced to do in the interaction with the family. Where that works, it should be maintained, but we have all seen circumstances where it has not been beneficial to children and has created huge logistical issues also. I ask the witnesses to comment on that.
I have dealt with a number of cases where children with disabilities have been expelled. We have all seen that a change of teacher or principal can change the circumstances in schools. How would the witnesses address those particular issues?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
On foster care, Ireland needs to recognise that 88% of children in State care are in foster care. There are probably about 4,000 foster families. They need to be treated as if they are gold. They need to be given every possible support. It needs to be made as easy as possible for them to support the child they have taken in because we have said to them that they are our eyes and ears. This child will not be able to stay in their biological family and they have to do a job for us. That should be an easy job for those foster parents. That would help us encourage more foster parents to come forward. They need as much help as possible.
On the issue of expulsion, I will hand over to Ms Ward.
Ms Nuala Ward:
What we have looked for over the last number of years is the publication of the rates of expulsion and suspension of children with special educational needs. That needs to be published and interrogated. In the last set we had, the rate was significantly higher than that for children in mainstream schools without additional needs. We need to acknowledge that. It is so important that we support these amazing schools and fantastic teachers in every way we can.
We should listen to them, listen to the parents and do whatever we can to keep these children in schools.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Supports and guidelines.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I am going to speak next. We will then go to Deputy Boland.
I thank the witnesses for their engagement so far. I wanted to touch on the complaints about bullying. How many of them related to social media? I can see in the Ombudsman for Children's submission to Coimisiún na Meán around the online safety code, it put in recommendations on safety by design, parental controls, complaints literacy and age verification. I am passionate about age verification across social media, but also pushing for age verification on pornography sites. Was there much of a correlation between bullying complaints and social media? I was recently speaking to Pieta House representatives. They noted a trend where they used to get referrals in from teenagers at the age of 16, but that has gone down to 14. There are a lot of links to social media. What are the thoughts of the witnesses on that?
Ms Nuala Ward:
We get a significant number of complaints about bullying. They are difficult because our message is we cannot substantiate bullying. We could not call another child a bully. That is not our role. The focus is that if a child is profoundly unhappy in school, what is going on? What can we do to make things better? When we were growing up, if the Cathaoirleach does not mind, we could go home, go to our bedroom and we did not have to see our bully, but the critical piece from what children have told us is that now they do not have that privilege anymore. Their bully can follow them home. Groups of bullies can follow them home on social media by being excluded or on Discord and all of that. That is so devastating for any child. Anything we can do to protect children in this online world, especially when they are very young and do not understand, is essential.
Dr. Tricia Keilthy:
Specifically on the online safety code, for all the reasons Ms Ward outlined, safety by design is critical to ensure the spaces that children are interacting with are child friendly and social media companies are accountable to those measures. Age assurance is vitally important and how that is operationalised still needs to be worked out. One of the areas of concern that we are looking at is artificial intelligence, AI, and how that impacts children's rights and in particular the issue of recommender systems, or the algorithms, and how inappropriate content is fed to children and the impact that has on their mental health as well. We want to see a much greater focus on protecting children online.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
We spoke recently at a massive international conference in the national conference centre for privacy professionals. I spoke about the idea of every app being designed to be safe for children right from start. That is safety by design. We have all of the bells and whistles on it, but it is set up only for children and the adults just have to switch off whatever they have to switch off. That seemed to be alien. I could not believe the number of people who were fascinated by that idea. They were professionals looking to make profit and trying to create all sorts of things that were nothing to do children, but they could see that as a good way to go. They also suggested that this could be a positive for older people too because the same concept would work for the older person, who might not have used apps, if they know it is set up for simplicity. It could be great. The interaction and dialogue with the professionals is crucial in this regard but we have to get to a stage where children are starting off on a safe basis. Education is also going to be a crucial part of that. We have to build it into our curriculum that online etiquette and online safety starts at four, five, six, seven years of age because before they get into national, school children are now swiping things.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Absolutely.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Dr. Keilthy mentioned the recommender systems and Dr. Muldoon referenced accountability. Going back to the topic of pornography, while we are not teenagers anymore, but we all know that teenagers are getting around it. They are using "seggs", instead of using the word "sex". They are finding content by using aubergine emojis and things like that. If we know that, the social media companies know that as well. Accountability is huge.
I have another question. I can already see the keyboard warriors on Twitter coming for me after this. We hear time and time again this narrative, especially online, that foreigners are coming into the country, they are getting everything and everything thing is for free. Let me clear before I continue: I know our immigration system is not where it needs be. It needs to be fair and firm. People who should not be here should be removed but this notion that foreigners are getting everything is so stark when Ms Ward mentioned mould, dirt and no access to a kitchen. I am a new TD. I am six months on the job. I have had one refugee in from an International Protection Accommodation Service, IPAS, centre so far. She had two requests. First, she would like to be able to cook a meal for her children. Second, she is trying to work every hour that she can, and she would like to be able to bring in her friend, who is now citizen here, to babysit her kids. They are not allowed to bring anybody into the IPAS centre. They are two small requests. What complaints is the Ombudsman for Children receiving from that setting?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
The other example that always stood out for me in regard to direct provision is a young mother with an infant baby had to go outside onto the street to go into the kitchen at 3 a.m. to use a microwave to heat the milk for the child. What does that do to the child? What does that do to the mother? What is this safety wise? All sorts of things went on. There are so many different types of accommodations being set up. They are run in different ways and different standards because we have not got a regulation set up for it. Some are doing an excellent job and some of them are a good place to be in the circumstances. From our point of view, we as a nation have agreed to provide through the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC, all rights to all children on our island. We need to do that consistently, no matter who they are, where they come from or how long they are here. That is our commitment. That is why we want to put that into domestic law so that there is no question that this is our commitment. We are not doing that all the time. There will always be slips, but these are things we could plan. We are hiring people and paying them millions of euros to do these things. We need to follow through and ask if they are doing this right and if they are providing the best possible service for these children. That is not happening. We are asking: are they providing the beds? All they want to know is how many people they can take in. They do not ask if it is one, two or three rooms. The complaints system within that is poor as well, which is a right, as Ms Ward referenced, as is the access to justice. We know families in there are scared to say anything about something that has gone wrong. That is a really concerning piece. There is a lot of work to be done in that area.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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No Irish person wants anybody, no matter where they come from, going outside to have to come back in to heat the baby's bottle. We will move to Deputy Boland.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for attending. I apologise I have a competing meeting at the same time. Unfortunately, I was in there and ran in here. I apologise for missing their opening remarks and if I repeat the previous questions. As a mum of eight-year-old twin girls and as a TD representing one of the youngest areas in the country with Balbriggan being the youngest and most culturally diverse large town in the country and rapidly growing, the issues that the witnesses have highlighted and continue to highlight in their reports are particularly alarming on many fronts. They raised again persistent systemic issues. Many of the same issues that they raised in 2004 are still being raised. What do they believe are the key barriers preventing systemic change in areas such as disability services, education and healthcare access for children? How can we help?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
There are a couple of areas. They will not be a surprise to any of the members. The biggest one is the interagency co-operation or interdepartmental work. It should not be that hard to do or fix. That is a man-made system. That is adults creating a system that works for them, dividing up the budget, dividing up the names and dividing up sections. We can see the way Departments are changed all the time. We can change them around, but we should ask what a child needs from us.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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What is the issue there? The child should be front and centre. Dr. Muldoon is right, and I see it in the representations I engage in every day. The Departments of education and children are not talking. It is not joined up. What is the internal barrier?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
It always ultimately comes down to finance and who will be the person who pays the bill, which ultimately means who will be the person who will sit in front of an Oireachtas committee and take the blame if anything goes wrong. There was an initiative in 2014 under Civil Service reform called pathfinder project, which was meant to create one office that would bring people from the Departments of Health, Education and children, specifically to address children's mental health.
That was funded three or four years in a row, agreed by all three Secretaries General, and has still never come to fruition since 2014. It was meant to be an initiative to show the Civil Service could be flexible. That never came to fruition for whatever reason.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It showed the opposite.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
Exactly, it has shown the opposite. I wrote for four or five years to different Ministers who kept pushing me around in circles and said it was up to somebody else. They then said they were waiting for legislation, and I have been told clearly that it could be done administratively. We do not need legislation to do those sorts of things. Ultimately, they could not agree on who would be the person leading the show. That is one area.
The second area is the children's budget. There is no child-specific budget. Again, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child says that every government should have child-specific budgets so that we know what is going on. Within health, they cannot tell us what they spend on children. They can tell us that roughly €1.5 billion is going to spent on mental health. Our best guess is that approximately €300 million of that will be spent on children's mental health, but that is only a guess. The reason we do not get a specific figure is that it allows it a slush fund to move into acute beds or somewhere else if it needs to. However, €300 million for children's mental health is less than 0.01% of the health budget, and we know that 75% of all people with mental health issues start experiencing them in adolescence. We need to know the data. We need to know what Departments are doing so that we can measure it, change things and see what is effective.
It is also that idea that we do not listen to children. We do not hear what they are saying and take their solutions. Their solutions are simple a lot of the time. We know exactly every penny of what we spent on the children's hospital because it is bricks and mortar, but we do not know what we spend on children. We helped with a survey or consultation with children in Children's Health Ireland in 2017. Children had never been surveyed for their views within Children's Health Ireland at that stage. One answer that came back from a child asked if we could change the height of the light switch because they were scared to get out of bed at night to go to the toilet. These are simple things. Listening to children makes sense across the board. That is why, if we incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the man or woman who works in the Department of agriculture, who may never meet a child, still has to think about being child's rights compliant. They could end up in the Department of education. Every system works together, because if they do not work together and do not think of child's rights compliance, they can be sued. The lawsuit is not the answer, but what is happening in other countries where that incorporation has happened is that the lawsuit is resolved much better than it is here. A much better solution comes out of it. A judge in Ireland will say, "That is all right, that is okay for Johnny," but they do not look at the system. If you took a lawsuit when there is the incorporation, they will say that might work for Johnny but it is not going to work for the whole system, so the whole system has to be changed. If that is the outcome of a lawsuit, the system will start to change itself a lot earlier. That is the rationale.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I am watching the clock.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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In the short time I have left, I want to ask about the UN convention. What is the impediment? Why have we not moved forward with it?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
We have brought it to the Taoiseach and to lots of Ministers at this point. The first answer is always that it will make it all justiciable - we could be sued. Our reply is that we are already being sued for some of the silliest things ever. People are going to the High Court to get their assessment of need verified and we are fighting them. That is €50,000 gone on every single case. What sort of madness is that?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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That money could be better spent on actually investing in the services.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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As a lawyer, I absolutely know how expensive those cases are.
Dr. Tricia Keilthy:
If we did have full incorporation of the UNCRC, it would be much better for public policymaking because we would be embedding children's rights at the start. We would be considering all these issues at the outset rather than trying to deal with them afterwards. It is important to say that the Department has looked at Ireland's compliance with the UNCRC and that work is being done by UCC. A report will be published on that, which will be important.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Will that be shortly?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Are there other countries like Ireland that have incorporated the UN convention?
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the witnesses. I very much value the work they do in promoting the rights and welfare of children. Their role is essential. The interventions they make on issues are important. I am new to this committee, but I want to ask an opening question about their journey over the past 20 years. How have the issues changed or not changed over the past 20 years? They have referenced children's disabilities. I am looking for a quick overview of the journey over the past 20 years where there has been progress, as well as where there has not.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
If we get stuck in the here and now, we might think there has not been progress, but in the past 20 years there is no doubt the child's voice has come to the fore. We trust and listen to our children in a different way. I would have been critical of the Department of education as being the least child-friendly system in the country up until five years ago, despite meeting every child. Ironically, the crisis of Covid meant it brought on board the children's voice through the ISSU, the Irish secondary schools union, which it listened to about the leaving certificate. Since then, it has created its own child participation unit. The curriculum reform is also being done through listening to children. That is a positive element. The NCCA, the curriculum assessment people, will listen to children all over the country to get better results. That is a model we need to bring to every Department so that they listen to children.
On specific areas, we have recently engaged with the Department of justice, which has provided special advocate support for children who were defendants in court and did not understand what was going on and were just nodding and saying "Yes". They then go out and breach their bail not knowing what they have actually said "Yes" to. There are approximately 1,500 children that way. We only took children out of adult prisons in 2017. That is not so long ago. We think we are a modern country. It was also only in 2017 when direct provision recipients were allowed to come to us. Before that they were not given any right to complain. Children's education has also changed completely. The new primary school now has children in circles. They talk in groups and work together. Their voice is a greater part of their development there. There is more understanding across the system that children are important. There has been huge progress in that regard.
Changes still need to be made. Members have heard some of the things we are doing. Across disability there is more awareness of what we need to do. There is still not the consistent co-operation to make it happen across bodies. That is the crucial bit. Foster parents should not be coming to us saying they need help to get a wheelchair for their foster child. That should just be automatic. It should be the case that if you have a child who needs a wheelchair, they should be able to get one every few years and send on the receipt, end of story. We still have parents who have to take pictures of their child to prove they have only one leg. That means the child is sitting there in their underwear. You could sort of live with that when you are four or five, but not when you are 14 or 15. There are small things that are not compassionate but are still happening just because they are built into the system. There is a lot of work to be done in that regard.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Given the breadth of what the ombudsman does, can I ask about resources?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
I have been lucky since I started. I started off with 12 staff. We are now up at 38. We have a vision for expansion because, as the Deputy can see from the report, there is a lot of complicated work going on that is taking longer to do than a lot of the work we are doing. We have also been nominated for three new roles across AI, a national preventive mechanism and international protection. We are not clear what the resources needed for that will be. We have been told no resources will be forthcoming, but we are expected to do the job either way. From my point of view, we will probably be looking to get more staff into it. We are currently good, but to provide a better service we would like to have more staff in the future.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Does Dr. Muldoon think there is better awareness of children's rights now?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
Yes, I do. There is no doubt about it. Across the board, children and parents are starting to understand their rights. They are fighting much harder. That is why things are complicated. Parents know their rights better. When we do the rights education workshop with children, we always say we are working two generations ahead. Those children we are informing now will be the priests, doctors, nurses, lawyers, gardaí and TDs of the future. They will understand their rights and they will fight for them.
There is a significant increase in awareness of that and of the importance of children's rights. We are trying to make it the most natural thing in the world that every Department would think about children from the start, whether it needs to or not. Thinking about children should be part of what they do. The system would then develop in a much better way and we would not be playing catch-up to fix broken elements.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The ombudsman's office has empowered and is empowering parents and children. It is holding organisations to account. He has said that education is the biggest issue that comes up. How much of a distraction is the annual scramble for school places for children with additional needs when we need to focus on an inclusive education system? Does the ombudsman have any views on planning for school places, particularly in light of the Department's recent statement that it currently works on the basis of 1.5% of the child population having autism but that this is going to move to 5%?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
The basic premise of any department of education is to provide a school place to start with. The CSO is one of the best organisations in the world for gathering statistics. We should have enough information within the schools and with the Department of education now being linked in with preschools to know how many children with special needs are coming into our system right from the start. It has been promised that this will now happen a year in advance, which it should. We will wait to see. We were promised that two years ago, when we put out our first report on planning for places, but we still ended up with 300 children being unable to get places that year. Last year, something like 125 could not get places. We hope that issue will be eliminated because it requires a lot of energy on the part of the poor parents and the children. The Deputy will know better than I would that there was a real problem in Dublin 15. Some 13 schools have come together to create a single application, which is wonderful, but they are still highly oversubscribed. At least people are only getting one refusal. There is a negative impact of parents from getting 20 refusals from 20 schools about their child. It is not just a "No" letter; it is a "No" letter to their child.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It is rejection.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I thank everyone for that first round of questions. It was really insightful and it is great that we have time for a second round. For the information of the committee, I am allowing questions on disability today because they are directly related to the report. Senator Keogan and Deputy Kerrane have indicated. Who else would like to speak on the second round? I have Deputies Currie, Ó Murchú, Boland and myself. I ask everyone to remember to keep it to seven minutes and to allow time for the witnesses to answer their questions.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Perhaps I will get some of the questions I asked in the first round answered. My first question relates to the 2023 UCD report, which details the organised and systemic sexual exploitation of children in State care, including children being trafficked to hotels for abuse, the failure of professionals to identify and take action on clear signs of exploitation, and the lack of consistent Garda and Tusla responses. What has the ombudsman's response to this been? What actions has his office taken? This is a really urgent issue. What has the ombudsman's office done to highlight this crisis?
The child death review called for the establishment of a central national review mechanism. I echoed these calls when they were made. Given the current system and parameters, what can the ombudsman's organisation and the Government do to improve the situation? Those are my first two questions. I will ask the other questions later.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
With regard to the UCD report, I had a number of engagements with the researchers. The Children's Commissioner for England did a similar report about ten years ago and, using the same methodology and rationale, found really serious concerns about children in care. In a similar way, the issue of children in care being abused was identified and uncovered in Northern Ireland. This therefore did not come as a surprise to me. It is unfortunately part and parcel of the way bad actors look for vulnerable children. We engaged with UCD and offered whatever assistance we could provide. We also discussed the issue with the Minister for children at the time and asked him to move forward on it and to support the UCD researchers in the next phases of their work. I understand there was discussion of further funding for new research at that stage. It is unfortunate that this can and does happen. I recall one particular case, probably 15 years ago, in which a young person in the north west was the key witness where a number of men were arrested and convicted of rape. She was a child in care and kept a diary of how these men met her and what they looked like. That was the only time I can remember a real case being brought forward in this type of grooming scenario. There is more that can be done from that point of view but I have not chatted to those researchers in about a year. I can link in with them in the future to see where they are.
As regards the child death review, I will pass over to Ms Ward.
Ms Nuala Ward:
The child death review is a very important report for us. We have met with a great many parents over recent years who are simply devastated at the loss of their child. All they want is answers. They want to know what happened and, most importantly, whether the deaths of further children can be prevented as a result. That is to be lauded, especially when these parents are in their deepest grief. As the Senator may know, since publishing the report, we have called on the Department of the Taoiseach to nominate a lead Department to set up this new statutory review mechanism. We have engaged with the Department of the Taoiseach on two occasions since. We hope that the Department that is to take the lead will be announced very soon. We are also continuing to engage with the agencies, the HSE and Tusla, to ensure that, where any child dies tragically, there is a transparent, fair and clear process for families to get the answers they seek in a timely manner. That timeliness is critical because the longer they wait for answers, the more they are locked in their grief. We are adamant that we will continue to push for this for the well-being of all children.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I find this all very shocking given how vulnerable and open to grooming children in care, particularly residential care, are. I had a child in my care in an emergency situation a couple of times and that child ended up in residential care, becoming part of this and taking her own life. These children are being let down badly.
Let us go back to the issue of gender. Will Dr. Muldoon answer my questions on self-identification and consent, gender-affirming care for minors, the Cass review into the Tavistock Centre and Irish referrals to that centre? I would really appreciate it if he would give me his thoughts on each of those issues.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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No, I asked whether, given the number of individuals reporting irreversible negative outcomes post treatment, the ombudsman's office had undertaken or considered undertaking a review of the impact on Irish children of these referrals to the Tavistock centre.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
That is not something we have considered. I engage with Professor Donal O'Shea in this regard. As the Senator said, he identified concerns. I am aware of those concerns and have engaged with him on those. The Government has promised to provide the best possible appropriate care for all of our children, including mental health care, physical care and medical care. In this case, we have let down our children who were asking questions for whatever reason. We have let them down. We have not provided that service. We outsourced it to the Tavistock centre. That centre has been closed. We now have an new individual lead and are creating a new team. However, throughout this time, a range of children - I do not know the number - are constantly asking themselves questions and we do not have anywhere to bring them or talk to them or a multidisciplinary team to work with them.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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The UK has permanently banned puberty blockers. As an advocate for children, does Dr. Muldoon believe that by actively endorsing a pathway for children questioning their gender he has actively harmed these vulnerable children and led them down a path that is irreversible? Does he see the danger that could be to children? Does he think Ireland should ban puberty blockers for children?
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Does Dr. Muldoon believe that Ireland should permanently ban puberty blockers for children like the UK did?
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Keogan. I will move to Deputy Kerrane.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I will come back to some of the questions I asked that the witnesses did not have time to answer. Specifically, the fact the Ombudsman for Children's Office has no remit in terms of complaints made about private crèches and childcare providers is of concern, especially when it is getting complaints and has to say it does not have the remit to investigate them. In regard to the engagement the Ombudsman for Children's Office has had with the Department on that, can I have an update on the progress on that issue?
The 88% rise in child protection and welfare concerns received last year - they are not complaints but, rather, concerns - is a very high percentage rise. Will the witnesses give further detail on that?
To come back to special care, did the Ombudsman for Children's Office engage with Tusla following the publication of the report and the very serious concerns raised about special care? On the point regarding children being put into special care when they have addiction or mental health issues, they are put into that care and they are unable to get any support or assistance for what they are suffering from.
Ms Nuala Ward:
On the crèche issue, we engaged with the various parties prior to the programme for Government in the expectation and hope they would see we should have a remit considering the significant amount of State moneys that have gone into this private sector. We will continue to engage with the lead Department, the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, because first and foremost we believe the national childcare agency it proposed to set up should be the first tier for complaints. Pending that, people should be able to come to us and we should be able to take complaints and try to resolve them. These are very young children. It is not right or proper that parents do not have an independent place to go, such as ourselves, so we will continue to engage on that.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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Is a legislative change required to widen the remit of the Ombudsman for Children's Office?
Ms Nuala Ward:
Yes. What we have put forward is that the Office of the Ombudsman sought a statutory instrument to ensure private nursing homes would fall under its remit a number of years ago. We believe we could simply duplicate that. As more and more State investment goes in, if the Department supports us we could engage with the sector and providers and very quickly be able to take complaints. That is our hope but we would need support for that.
In regard to the child protection concerns, it is very serious. A lot of my team are front-line staff. They take calls and go out to centres. We have very strong obligations, like everyone else, in regard to the Children First guidelines. Even if we receive a complaint, my team always take a look to see if there is a child at risk, a child protection concern or an abuse concern and we notify it to Tusla or to the Garda as appropriate. That is the 88%. They can be very complex and, quite frankly, are a reflection of the referrals to Tusla and, sadly, of our society at the moment.
We are really concerned about special care. We have to remember, with regard to the Deputy's point about the therapeutic issue, that to deprive a child of his or her liberty for welfare reasons involves the highest level of rights we are speaking about here. This is beyond serious. For us to fail to give the children the adequate therapeutic supports they need is shocking. It is absolutely unacceptable. We have engaged with Tusla about the special care report. We think it is an excellent report but it has to be implemented quickly. We cannot have another report, not when these children are being deprived of their liberty for years. A very reliable source said recently that there are children with very serious matters coming up in front of the courts and asking the judge to please send them to Oberstown, not special care, because at least in Oberstown they have a release date. That is very serious.
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Ward.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Kerrane. Deputy Ó Murchú is next. Deputy Currie sends her apologies as she had to leave for a meeting of the Business Committee.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I will follow on from what Deputy Kerrane asked about the added powers the Ombudsman for Children's Office believes it could be assigned by statutory instrument. Circumstances have changed and the Ombudsman for Children's Office has a large number of people coming to it and while the majority of them relate to education there are Tusla-specific questions and a large number about disability and whatever else. Does the Ombudsman for Children's Office see itself at this point as having sufficient powers, capacity and resources? I assume the answer is "No" in some cases. Where exactly does the office have a need in making sure it is fully resourced to deliver the service it wants to provide? This is about maintaining maximum leverage on the systems and agencies from the point of view of delivering for families and children, specifically.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
Ms Ward spoke about this. If we got the early years remit, that would bring almost every child in the country in at a much earlier stage than was the case previously. We would have to look at our resources in that regard. It would change what we would need from people. That is something we would always look at. We consistently review our legislation. Our last review was conducted two years ago and we have a number of requests. Early years was probably one of the biggest areas we examined. We are constantly reviewing things to make sure they are up to date.
As Ms Ward referenced, education is another area where complaints are more complicated. People come to us with complaints about bullying and want somebody to be declared as a bully and we cannot do that. Our recommendations are always written without binding power and it is always the tension to wonder whether we should or should not have binding recommendations. Internationally, the recognised standard is that ombudsmen do not have binding recommendations because if the recommendations are binding, what happens is that as soon as the first letter is sent, people lawyer up. That is not what we want in schools. We want local resolutions and things to happen as quickly as possible to reduce the issue. However, we always keep those points in mind.
We are now examining the concept of mediation. Perhaps mediation could be something we could work on and try to engage with, whether the mediation is with us or we encourage it in other areas. The area of education has become much more fraught. Parents are asking more of educators and are challenging them more. There is also the fact that the education system is set up as a closed loop. If a parent makes a complaint, he or she has to complain to the teacher he or she probably has a concern about, then complain to the teacher's principal and if that is not good, go to the teacher's board of management, and that is it. It is a really closed loop and that is not the way most complaint systems work. For instance, the HSE has an independent, separate complaints system that takes the complaint on for someone. We need to think of having that within education, in terms of who can actually insist on something being done within the education system? The Department of education has a long-standing hands-off approach. There are 4,000 autonomous schools so therefore parents are unsure of where to go.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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There are obviously legacy issues. Will Dr. Muldoon give more detail on what he considers would be a more fit for purpose scenario in that situation? He does not have to be utterly prescriptive, just a little.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
I think we probably do not have quite a final product in our heads but we have started to engage with the Department of education, the National Parents Council and people like that to say we need to improve what we are doing here. I do not think it is satisfactory for the schools, parents and teachers all of the time. Most of our complaints are, but we see a new range where they are more complicated and more difficult to get a solution. It would be wrong of me to say exactly what it will look like yet but somebody has to be able to insist something is done. It is not in our legislation to do that. The Department of education often will say it is nothing to do with it as it is an issue for the board. The patron does not do it and ultimately the principal can make his or her own decision. It is so complicated and I am not sure what the final product will look like.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That creates that particular issue we spoke about earlier, that is, trying to deal with children who have been suspended or put out of school, particularly children with more challenging needs. There is no consistency across the board. I accept the difficulties in some of those circumstances so that would be useful.
I will put the witnesses back on the spot. I asked the question with 30 seconds on the clock last time. I ask about the issue of suspensions and expulsions, particularly around challenging behaviour. I accept that, in some cases, schools are missing out on the therapies, the assessments and all the pieces that should be in place beforehand that could reduce some of the frustration that children sometimes have and deal with some of these issues. We need a way to deal with it, and it needs to be fair across the board – fair to teachers, SNAs and principals, but also fair to families and, specifically, children.
Ms Nuala Ward:
The recent proposal that all teachers should be trained in special educational needs is vital. We hope that will be rolled out quickly. It is such a fraught area for parents. One can imagine what it must be like to be told that your five-year-old - we have a five-year-old - is suspended. It is serious. It has to be perceived to be fair. The section 29 appeal is there, but that is only for children who have been suspended for more than 20 days. That is the right also in respect of expulsions. We are adamant. We need to shine a light on this issue. We need the information, we need the stats and we need to deal with it head on and find out what we can do to prevent such young children with such specific needs being expelled and suspended at a much higher rate than their peers in mainstream schools. It is profoundly wrong and we need to get to the bottom of it.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
It is also the cutting edge of where we need to start this discussion on what a proper inclusive education looks like so that we are all working together for - nirvana is probably a bit too fancy - the idea that every child from the same family can walk in the same gate and be provided with the best education possible. That is the future. In order to do that, we have to get to the bottom of this and make sure we are not expelling children at that stage in their career.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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We cannot just be relying on, at times, outlier educators and those who have gone away and trained themselves and so on.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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We need consistency across the board.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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In looking at the priority recommendations, I noted one was to keep the child poverty and well-being programme office and address the disproportionate impact of poverty on marginalised children. We have recently seen again the commentary about the huge number of children – I think the highest ever – in poverty. Where is that office now and what is the plan for the future?
Dr. Tricia Keilthy:
The child poverty and well-being unit has been retained. Its work is ongoing, which we think is an important function in terms of having a co-ordinated response to the issue of child poverty. We have seen big investment in hot school meals and free schoolbooks. We have DEIS+ as well, which is a positive initiative. The two areas where we are not seeing progress are income supports for families - particularly children living in one-parent families and households where there is a disability, which consistently have the highest rates of poverty - and the linked question of the number of children growing up in homelessness, which continues to rise month on month. A sustained focus on income supports and child homelessness, as well as all the important early intervention supports we spoke about earlier, is crucially important if we are going to turn the tide on homelessness and child poverty.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
On top of that, only this week there was confirmation that foster children will get the free books scheme and the back-to-school allowance, which was previously withheld from them. Unfortunately, I think it will be means tested, which we should drop. We are looking at about 2,500 children in that sort of situation. We are starting to move in the right direction but it will take a number of years to get children back out.
We are delighted that the unit stayed within the Taoiseach’s Department, so it should have real opportunities to make things different.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Has the unit been retained indefinitely?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Good. I attended a briefing with Tusla yesterday on foster care. I heard from some of the fantastic foster care parents and their passion and commitment. The issue of the income supports being applied to foster parents was brought up. There is a concern around the means test. Children in foster care are hugely vulnerable. As a parent, I know how expensive children are. I do not believe even the money foster parents are given now - I am sure Senator Keogan can attest to this - fully covers the cost of supporting and educating foster children and ensuring they have the same access to things that their classmates do. I agree as I certainly have reservations about any type of means test when it comes to supporting children in foster care. I will be bringing it up with the Minister, who was in attendance at the briefing yesterday, which was good.
It is great that we now have a Department of children. The Minister is very committed and passionate about the area. How are the witnesses’ interactions with the Department?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
We have had an ongoing engagement with the Department throughout our time. Every year, we have regular meetings with the Minister or the Secretary General. I think we have a meeting with the Minister in the next week or two. We engage with the Secretary General and at assistant secretary level across the legislation that is going on. We engage with Tusla as well. We very much try to keep our finger on the pulse and keep them informed of the work we are worried about or the issues we have. It is a very positive engagement.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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That is good to hear. When Dr. Muldoon meets the Minister in the next couple of weeks, what are his top three asks?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
Our first one will be the incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. That will be there. The Minister's remit is around Tusla and disability. Those are the two big issues we will be chatting to her about – that concept of how children are looked after at their most vulnerable through Tusla and whether Tusla has what it needs. The answer is always, “Well, we have increased the money”. That might not be what it needs. It may need different legislation or other stuff. It is making sure it is supported in the fullest possible way to cover what is a changing landscape. Children are different. Foster parenting is dropping away, so we need to provide more State services, unfortunately. Are we planning for that, and are we funding it properly?
Within disability, the Deputy heard us talk all about the range of issues going on with disability. I just put in a request to meet with the CEO of the HSE, hopefully in the next couple weeks or the next month or two, in respect of disability as well. I am trying to push it on both sides to make sure it is not just the Department of Children, Disability and Equality. It is also the HSE and all of these parties working together. We will bring the same message to both sides.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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On issues around mental health and disability, we need to see therapies much earlier. What can happen is children become disengaged and disenfranchised from the school system and from authority. It also affects their self-worth, their self-confidence and their mental health. That only creates societal issues. Apart from having more therapists, which we are all agreed on and we hope we will see, what else can we do to support parents and children?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Primary and secondary.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Primary and secondary schools?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
Yes, absolutely. The Minister, Deputy Foley, created a pilot scheme across seven counties where they put counsellors into primary schools. She continued this in the current academic year and it will be evaluated by, I think, the University of Maynooth, but I am not sure. The anecdotal evidence is that it is has already been very successful in helping children get over things that are major for them but might be small in the long run. For example, a child might be bereaved or a child's parents may have separated. The child gets access to therapy and it allows them to come to grips with that. It does not become a major problem throughout their lifetime. To me, that is the way forward. It creates an opportunity for early intervention but it also creates a normality that it is okay to go to therapy. That means when they are 13 and 14 and go into secondary school, and they have an opportunity or need to go for whatever reason, they would not see it as strange or unusual. That is a big step forward. We have tried to engage with the Department of Health. We talk about inter-agency co-operation. The Departments of Health and education could work there because health will be benefiting. One would assume that will reduce the primary care waiting lists and stuff like that.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I am next. Let us look at Oberstown and special care in Tulsa.
We heard last week there was an incident in Oberstown where nine staff were injured and four went to hospital. We can look at special care and the number of people on extended leave or sick leave due to injury. I think we are all agreed more therapists are needed for special care and we are failing in that regard but on the security guards who are potentially about to be hired, and Deputy Kerrane spoke about this as well, it is a real cry for help. We will have Tusla in on 10 July and we will all be eager to talk about this, but given the very high turnover and the desperation, what are the witnesses' views on the security guards? I am coming at this as a behaviour support specialist who has a back injury and has had many injuries over the years from dealing with challenging behaviour. I loved my job and would turn up for work every day. People outside maybe do not understand when you come home with an injury and ask how can this happen to you at work. Unfortunately, whether it is in special schools, autism classes or special care we have amazing carers and therapists who are putting themselves at risk for the care of children daily. That is the case in the special care unit I am sure. What would the office's short-term solutions to keeping the staff safe in there if it should not be security guards? Three to six months will be needed to get these therapists in and it might even be a year before we start making progress on reducing challenging behaviour. How do we keep special care units staffed and keep the staff and children safe in the short term?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
It is a tricky one to come up with and I might not have enough of the facts to come up with a proper solution but again, from our point of view this was being raised four or five years ago. The genesis of this problem was the closing down of the high support units. We had three of those with 20-odd beds around the country and we closed them down and kept neither the beds nor the expertise. We thought we would survive with only special care. We created that. That was a Tusla policy. It decided to close them. We saw within two years that was not going to work because we had a whole range of children who had options through high support as opposed to special care and they are now falling through the cracks. They are the children who are causing trouble. They are possibly ending up in the justice system out in Oberstown instead of being given a therapeutic intervention.
The whole concept of special care is so wonderful. The idea is you go in and get a short, sharp intervention with therapeutic support, they wrap everything around you and you get an opportunity then to take a breath, reset yourself and go back to where you were. That is the whole idea. It is not meant to be a long-term solution for anything. For us it is a real failure of the system that we have to hire security, but I can understand if we do not have the bodies. I am aware Tusla is trying to change the way it sees things. It is creating social work assistants and social work apprenticeships so people can be fast-streamed to become social workers. It is trying new initiatives but I am just sorry it did not try them even five years ago because we would be in a different situation now.
I do not have anything to add to that so I will ask my colleagues.
Ms Nuala Ward:
We go to Oberstown every month. We also visit all the special care units as well. We have nothing but the greatest of respect. My background is as a residential care worker and social worker, so I have great respect for the people who show up every day and work with these young people, who are quite fantastic. Especially if they have an adult who believes in them it can be a game-changer for these young people. I am very well aware of the security staff issue. It was there a number of years ago as well. We have to imagine the perception for a child walking into this unit. You are there because you need to be looked after and you are met with security staff. The perception of that is already setting up a child to fail because one of the greatest preventers of a child being violent is your relationship, your attachment, your ability to talk them down and engage with them. That is one of the greatest safeguards you can do and highly skilled, well qualified social workers and social care staff are needed to do that.
It is really important we say we have deep concerns about the whole care system. There is a lot to talk about with special care and I totally respect that because these young people have great needs and have been detained much longer but we have engaged with the Department about its alternative care strategy. We need to value our kinship carers. We need to value our foster carers. I have been in foster care homes around the country. I do not like saying "foster carers". I need to say foster families because there are siblings, grannies, aunts and uncles. It is not just the foster carers. These are foster families who have done amazing work with these young people. We need to value them by showing them support, giving them financial support and making sure children are being heard. Every week we are getting in camera rules lifted for us to take concerns from GALs as they are so concerned. Judges are so concerned. Foster carers are so worried about some of these children. We have to value the people who are giving the support to these children and stop them ending up in such chaos that they are in Oberstown or in special care.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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We had a briefing yesterday about fostering.ie which is under Tusla. There were foster carers there talking about how wonderful the experience is, and Senator Keogan is or was a foster carer. It is scary to see last year there were fewer foster carers joining than leaving. There is great support on the ground in one sense with the out-of-hours, the peer support and the financial assistance. I was surprised to hear of the flexibility there is with being a foster carer in the form of short-term foster caring and emergency foster caring. We heard about babies and maybe newborns who are put into emergency foster care for six to eight weeks. There is also weekend respite and summer respite. The onus is on all of us to spread the word about the need for foster carers and the fact there are workarounds. Our society has changed a lot in the last 20 years as these foster families are starting to leave the service. As they said, some are leaving because the 18-year-olds who are now not in foster care are still staying with them because of the housing crisis or different needs. We have become very busy as a society in the last 20 years and so maybe the onus is on all of us.
There is time for a third round of questions. Senator Keogan and Deputy Ó Murchú have indicated.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach. Last week we had the Children's Rights Alliance before us and I highlighted the 8,500 Tusla referrals in April of this year alone that appears in the Tusla report. It is absolutely shocking. We are all talking about foster families and residential care. For me it is about how we can support families to be better parents, because that is the key. Obviously there are certain children we cannot keep in a family environment for various reasons but there are families who, with the right resources and supports and maybe social workers going into those family homes, could provide the best environment for that child to remain in. We just pull the child out and then try to put a plaster on the situation and it really is not the best way.
As someone who has been a foster parent for many years, the role of guardian ad litem - which Ms Ward spoke about - stops when the child turns 18. If there is one thing I am asking the witnesses for as they go out of here, it is for that to be extended to the age of 23. If that child who is in State care is in education right up to that age, they need somebody who is going to advocate for them and they do not have anybody. Such children's aftercare workers may not be great advocates for them. Even trying to get in contact with them can be very difficult. If the witnesses could talk to the Ministers for justice and for children to try to extend the role of the GAL to the age of 23 for children in State care who are in education, I would really appreciate that.
Those are the things I wanted to bring up. Monthly referrals numbering 8,500 is shocking.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
Yes. I will be referring to some of the stuff I have said already. The whole idea from me is always prevention. We need to prevent the child coming out of the family. We agree on that completely. The partnership with parents and family support system within Tusla has to be increased and broadened so we can given those supports as early as possible because we know the children who need the help. Locally, the social workers will know. They know about certain areas. They know from the public health nurse, the early years and from the teachers where the issues are and we need to put in those supports. One of the things I have always argued is that when a school is nominated as a DEIS school, we should also nominate that area as a DEIS area that needs extra support. The parents would get further education, maybe therapy, adult education, literacy and maybe get reskilled.
What is happening is we recognise the child is in a disadvantaged area and we give him or her an education and extra support, but then the child goes back to the home that is not fully supported and the parents may not be supporting them. We know where the children are vulnerable and we have to provide more. From our point of view, that is where a lot of the stuff happens. We have to go upstream and give the PPFS programme much more impetus and support around that in order that the children are not taken out of the family.
Ms Ward will talk about the GAL side of things.
Ms Nuala Ward:
The Senator has made a very valid point in seeking the extension of the GAL role to provide support to children until they have reached 23 years. We already know that the brains of young people are still developing at the age mentioned. We ourselves have engaged in respect of aftercare. Children in education are doing okay. If they can go to education and stay in school then that is fantastic support but we are deeply concerned about the lack of support for children who are not in education. Why are the children who have fallen off, who are homeless, in addiction or in Oberstown not getting equivalent support? It feels like the provision is the wrong way around because these children need much more intense support and, hopefully, eventually they might get into education or employment and have a GAL.
On the Senator's point about family first, she is so right. These children, as much as they can, should be kept within their family home. We know that is the best outcome for them. What we have really flagged very strongly over the last two years with the Department is the need to invest in kinship care. I mean the grannies, aunts, uncles and granddads who are looking after these children. That is an invaluable resource that we are not even vaguely supporting. That care keeps children not with their direct family but within the family network. That is a really important point as well and the Senator is absolutely right that we should try to keep children at home with their siblings. That is the one other issue that is raised with us as well. Young people have told us that when they are taken into care that a lot of the time there is not enough emphasis placed on keeping them in contact with their siblings. It can be very challenging for children when siblings are split up.
Dr. Tricia Keilthy:
There is a huge opportunity now to get these issues right in the terms of the development of the new alternative care strategy. That covers the entire continuum of care from early interventions and supports right up to aftercare where we can be confident that the system is set up with children's rights in mind and that we are not always firefighting in terms of the issues that come up. I am sure the committee will engage on this issue and we must develop a robust alternative care strategy that is supported by the Child Care Act.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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On those children who are in special care and who might be in Oberstown or whatever, they have a multidisciplinary team around them. When a child is in care after the age of 18 he or she may go off to college and may reside in Tusla accommodation. The safety net of that child is completely taken away and that person is now his or her own advocate. Some of the children, when they are in care, their voice really has not been heard right along the system. They have had someone like me - a foster parent who has advocated for them all the time - or a guardian ad litem.. When the guardian ad litem is gone then the foster parent has absolutely no say about the care of children. These children are very important as well and we have got them to 18 years but it would be great for the guardian ad litem to continue working with them to keep people on the right path right up until the age of 23. Such an initiative would ensure a greater chance for these people to achieve a positive life outcome but if we drop that ball then there is a risk. It is okay for people to get a degree but if they cannot get mental health supports then there will be a fall, which I have seen happen. I have seen this happen to children that I have fostered. People will fall. It might happen at 26 or 27 years or later in life but people will fall and there is no one there to provide support. If a person has a guardian ad litem from the age of 18 to 23 then it would act as a safety net for anyone leaving the services at 18.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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There is a fair amount of agreement about the necessity to provide interventions and high support and the earlier that is done then the better the outcome. Obviously there is a failing because we are talking about special care and high support being insufficiently resourced with the right sort of supports that are needed for acute circumstances. That is a case of highlighting the issue and ensure that conversation happens because here we keep talking about early interventions, holistic and whole-of-government approaches, yet we do not deliver.
The provision of in-school counselling makes complete sense. Again, it is located where the need is. We have seen it in respect of disabilities. It is a promise rather than delivery from the point of view of in-school therapies. Again, if we put that into schools might mean we have fewer suspensions and whatever.
I wish to raise an issue that has been mentioned by a number of members here. Of the issues that are caused by the difficulties of the engagement, whether we are talking about mental health services, particularly CAMHS, and addiction services, another term we love using is "no wrong door" and having a single point of access. Again, we are dealing with promises about that but we do have to see it absolutely fulfilled because otherwise we just have failure.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
Yes. I note that Mr. Bernard Gloster talked about creating a "no wrong door" system from October for disability. Again, we all know that if we can do that then it will be a help but all it is doing then is making the system work in the way it should start with.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
It is getting a person in the door literally so that the person will be on one waiting list instead of three, so it will be a factor. The Deputy touched on a few things. There are children, particularly children who are vulnerable to a mental health issue or an addiction issue. We have one adolescent unit across the country that works with addiction. We have CAMHS avoiding comorbidity-----
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
-----whether it is more to do with mental health and addiction or mental health and disability. We are now into smaller cohorts but they are crucially vulnerable children who have had so much trauma in their lives that we should be making their path easier. Again, we need to go upstream and support the primary care system in order that those children have as much help as possible before they need CAMHS. That is why I would love to see counselling provided in every primary and secondary school. We have guidance counsellors within schools. Some of them are trained for therapeutic work and some are trained for other work. We just need to up our game there and make sure that counselling is available because that will lift off the primary care. That is where my idea came from for a pathfinder project, which I have mentioned before, where one office supports children with mental health. That smooth running with one office would help the Departments of children, Health and education because if there is good intervention at primary school level, then there will be less need for primary care. Similarly, if there is intervention at secondary school level then there is no need to go to CAMHS and if a person goes to CAMHS then the person is in better shape and has not slipped down the road of severe mental ill-health. We need to also look at addiction services. Again, I am not talking about a big investment. One or two services would provide a huge change for a lot of children who self-medicate now and find themselves using different drugs at a very early stage because of being traumatically impacted. So work needs to be done there. It is recognising the complication that many of those children have. If a child is even being thought about in terms of going into care then we, as a State, should note that child is traumatised and that, by its very nature, means the child needs therapeutic services, which should be wrapped around the child very quickly. Schools should be informed if a child needs help and should be allowed to facilitate that. Often children in foster care do not always say it. Children in care, if they are moved around, do not even get the chance to create the attachment that Ms Ward talked about. They move from one care centre to another and they go from one teacher to another in a different school.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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If they are lucky.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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The pathfinder project was mentioned. Again, it is the communication piece that falls through. In fairness to Bernard Gloster, he spoke about another aspect. I will use it as an analogy rather than get into the issue around CDNTs. He said the people who had a better experience of CDNTs had a link worker.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Therefore, there is a communication-----
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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-----rather than just a frustration of running from one silo to another.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That is definitely the piece that is missing. In terms of vulnerable children, eventually their situation could deteriorate into whether it is as children but later as adults into street homelessness. On the particular issues around mental health services, we have all had issues at times trying to deal with some of these vulnerable people and the services are not there. Certain protections that are there sometimes from a human rights point of view, and Dr. Muldoon knows what I mean-----
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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----actually stop people from getting the care that they require.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
The Deputy has identified most of the main problems. I believe the Chair talked about how complicated it is to grow up in Ireland. It is different; it is harder. We have now had to enact a law to state grooming for criminality is a criminal offence. There are children of eight, nine and ten years of age who must face that sort of situation where their parents are not protecting them from criminality. If they do fall down that road, we should be able to bring them back out again.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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It is becoming a normality in several places.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
Unfortunately, it is a career choice. "Where am I looking and who do I look up to? I look up to the guys with fancy money." The fact we created a law for this shows how - endemic is not the right word - widespread it is. Those are the same areas which have DEIS schools but do not have DEIS support systems for the community. We need to start investing in and recognising if the child is in a DEIS area, the parents will need more help and support. We need to start moving that forward so we can prevent it from happening.
The other thing we never mentioned was a forensic medical unit for children and adolescents. The new Portrane central mental hospital has beds that have never been opened. Again, there are children who may fall into that system and because there is no forensic medical unit, may end up in Oberstown or in special care and be violent. Those are the sort of things we can join up. We created the system, put in the funding, created the beds and now we must invest in staffing. Those are the sort of things that can help.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Regarding the LGBTQIA+ inclusion strategy, the witnesses mentioned the need for a renewed and more ambitious approach. I join them in noticing the fall back of support for the community. Ten years on from the marriage referendum, the community talks about being frightened at present after getting to a point where they could hold hands in public. That safety has been eroded in recent times. On the points of feeling included, safe, having equal access to healthcare and having their full rights realised, could the witnesses speak more on that?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
Again, our job is to promote the rights of every child in Ireland. Whether that is a black child, a child from a different religion, country, of no state, an asylum seeker or LGBT, they should be safe and feel secure. They should be able to access all the services every other child gets and they should be able to be who they are, provided they follow all the rules and regulations society provides. It should always be that every child feels he or she can reach his or her potential in our country. That is what we need to build: a country that protects and promotes children.
We are now in a world that is falling around us. Rights are being denied in many countries around the world and regulation is being seen as a bad thing. We have an opportunity here in Ireland to say we are going to stand up for what we believe to be right, which is children's rights. We could say we will incorporate that into our domestic law and will ensure every child who lives here, feels safe, secure and wanted, no matter how they present themselves, whether that is as violent, a drug addict or a choir boy; nothing matters. We could say we will protect their rights completely. That, in turn, creates an atmosphere of welcoming people in from around the world.
We worry about economics. I suggest there are many entrepreneurs around the world who would love to come to Ireland because this is where their family will feel safe and their children will grow up in a good place. They will know their rights will be protected and there are checks and balances around that.
For me, that is the vision we should have for Ireland and I have said this to the Taoiseach. This would create Ireland as a world leader. Nobody in Europe has incorporated the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 20 years. This is an opportunity to say this is the best place in the world to grow up as a child and that we are putting our money where our mouth is by putting this into our laws and that we will follow those rules. That should make it safer for everybody.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Regarding the rainbow community, could Dr. Muldoon give me an example of the type of complaints the office gets from that community? Is it from the children or teenagers themselves or from teachers or parents? What do those complaints look like?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
There is a variety. We would not get an awful lot of direct complaints. Many of them might be around the bullying side of things with people being bullied for certain issues, such as racism, sexism and sexuality. They are always part of the school complaints we get. Most of the time we engage with the advocates. The concern is about safety and being yourself. The concern is that within schools, people are nervous to promote and support them any more. There are also schools that are very positive. One of the examples of where it has not been done right is in Poland. Schools there that were LGBT-supportive were picketed and seen as the wrong place to be. We cannot do that. Any one of our children should not feel insecure or unsafe. It is the same when people picket the accommodation centres or worry about them. It means the child looks out the window and says "I have done nothing but these people say I should not be here. I am not wanted." That is not the message we should be providing for Ireland.
From our point of view, the rainbow community needs to feel fully safe and supported and we will do everything we possibly can to do that and help them in that way.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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That is an interesting point. Freedom of speech and the right to protest is there and should be protected. There are places that are right to protest, such as outside local authorities and the Dáil here, where we have protests and engage with them regularly. Outside places where children are trying to be educated or play, however, is not the place for protests.
Talking about the UNCRC, to the lay person at home - I acknowledge we recently adopted the optional protocol - why is a full implementation of this so monumental and what are the everyday practicalities? We were talking about it in the disability committee yesterday in respect of the complaints procedure and how it is the last port of call after all avenues have been exhausted on a national level. To understand at a practical day-to-day level, what does fully implementing this look like?
Dr. Tricia Keilthy:
It is the most important thing we can do to safeguard children's rights. We have already signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; this will just give them real force. Practically, it would mean that when we are developing legislation, we would be looking at children's rights in the round. If pre-legislative scrutiny was being done on any legislation coming before the committee, this will make sure the rights set out in the UN convention are properly adhered to in that legislation. When that is then enacted, children's rights are considered with regard to the provision of services and how children can access their rights through the courts.
It is also more of a cultural change. It is about thinking differently on how we consider children's rights in areas such as the public sector, civil servants, teachers, nurses, doctors and how we deliver our services with children's rights in mind. If a planning application is going through to a local council, are we considering how children's rights will be affected? If we are planning local facilities, whether it is a playground or green spaces, how are children's rights considered in this?
It is embedding children's rights in every aspect of decision-making so we have their best interests and hear their voices. That is clear: we must listen and give respect to children's voices when we are developing or implementing policies. It is not just about legal routes through the courts - that is a part of it - it is a cultural change. It is changing how we think about and make policy. This saves much more money in the future. If we are making good policy from the start that is compliant with children's rights - we are baking it in from the start - we will spend less money in the future dealing with all the issues we are highlighting here today. It is about early intervention and those supports needed at the very beginning.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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We have some time left. There is a report today in the newspaper that security guards will be hired to restrain children in State care during violent episodes. Tusla confirmed it will be spending €1 million on close-protection personnel to work with staff in violent situations. Do the witnesses find that worrying?
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
We have said before it is a failure of the system if we must go down this route. As Ms Ward said, these systems are built around relationships and the trust that comes from working with good staff to feel secure and attached.
If you have a big, burly security guard, it sends out the message that we do not trust people, no matter what we say and how we are trying to create an attachment, and that we are still worried that they might hurt us.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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It says they are going to be assigned to other residential care units as well as off-site locations. That is really worrying. It is hard being a foster parent and having a child who may have violent episodes and may present violently in your home. To move that child into a residential care setting where he or she is cared by individuals who are coming in who have no real link to that child and where children could be restrained is horrendous to think of. Residential care is not a place for a child. It should not be a place for a child. Those homes should not exist. It is not the right care path, as far as I am concerned.
On the last comment by the Cathaoirleach about gender and children being who they want to be, I spent 26 minutes reading out all the different genders that are listed in the Seanad when we were dealing with legislation. I ask Dr. Muldoon not to get captured by this. I want the children to receive the care and support that they need as they navigate their early and teenage years. I want that support and that counselling to be given to our children. I do not want children to believe that they can change their sex. Does Dr. Muldoon believe that children can change their sex?
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Dr. Muldoon does not have to answer personal queries.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Does Dr. Muldoon believe that children can change their sex?
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Senator Keogan, he does not have to answer about personal beliefs if it is not about the report.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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He is the Ombudsman for Children.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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He is here to talk about the report and the issues. He does not have to talk about his personal beliefs.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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It is a question I am asking the Ombudsman for Children.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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He does not have to answer about his personal beliefs. If he wishes to, he can, but he does not have to.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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As the Ombudsman for Children, can Dr. Muldoon tell me what his position is in relation to children changing their sex?
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Reach their potential. So Dr. Muldoon believes that every pathway should be given to that child. If a child says, at five years of age, "I do not want to be a girl, I want to be a boy," Dr. Muldoon believes that the State should intervene and go along with it.
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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That says it all.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Does the Senator want to move on to another question?
Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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That is fine. Thank you.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I realise there has been an element of hogging the questions so will be very quick. I will follow up on what Dr. Muldoon said earlier about the idea of family supports, particularly in what he called DEIS areas. He was dealing with the fact that there is a huge issue of grooming by criminal gangs. Some young lad who sees the trappings of wealth can get a scooter, start doing 20 quid runs, and fairly soon after that he has to knock on somebody's granny's door about a drug debt. It all happens bit by bit and allows for a huge level of cut-outs from the person who is actually making any money from that. Dr. Muldoon spoke about those necessary family supports of making sure that parental skills and any help and resources that people need are provided but also about the wider piece. We have multiple pathways to education and employment today but we have many people who are a million miles from that, who need introductory pieces and to be facilitated along the line. By doing that, one can break the poverty trap and a whole pile of other issues, and avoid some of the acute issues that Tusla and others then have to address later.
Dr. Niall Muldoon:
One of the most enlightening pieces of work that I have ever heard was from somebody in an inner city situation. That person was a social worker who had been there for a long time and said that essentially, what they were trying to do was take a situation where they took somebody away from a €60,000 or €70,000 job, if criminality is a job, and then provide them with what? The dole. We need to find a way to supplant what they are offered. The child who was on €70,000 and is now on the dole asks what he is going to do with that and tells us it is a better way to go. One can understand where children are coming from. That needs to be recognised. The work that has been done in Dublin's north-east inner city has been really positive. Much work needs to be done relating to that society. When we talk about trying to provide the best for our children, it has to be about helping the parents to do that, not us as a State or as social workers. The parents are already there. Can we help them to be better with their children? Part of that is the economic circumstances in which they find themselves, how they make ends meet and what they have done to survive. Can we change that? As the Deputy said, we need to cut out the intergenerational passing on of these traumas.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Their system works.
Dr. Tricia Keilthy:
-----so our State services should be able to do that and provide intervention too. Much recruitment also happens in the online space, using social media and private messaging functions, which does not have proper oversight. There are huge risks there relating to grooming and the criminal exploitation of children. They are younger and younger, outside the age of criminal responsibility.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I promise that this is my final question but I am not renowned for keeping to my word. I think Ms Ward spoke about kinship care. That wider family piece is absolutely necessary. We have already talked about what needs to be done and the added supports which are required for foster carers and making sure we have more. When you have those in a family unit, some of which do a lot of heavy lifting, sometimes ad hoc and off the books because there can be issues with payments and so on, the issues need to be dealt with. A number of people who work in youth diversion projects and so on have told me that sometimes where there used to be a phenomenon of the good granny, that is not there in some cases, in the sense that you are now a number of generations into drug addiction and whatever else. That creates a whole pile of issues where there will be a need to support the family directly but the State has a bigger body of work to do. There are at least two questions in the middle of that. It is mainly the matter of kinship care. I am just pointing out that there are those who unfortunately do not have that wider piece that existed previously.
Ms Nuala Ward:
I understand what the Deputy is saying. It has to be appropriate and what meets the needs of the child. That is what is important. Of course the Deputy is right that there may not be the right kinship carer or relative any more who can take on the care of the child within the family unit. The point is that the opposite is also true. There is a range of relatives, both grannies and uncles, like I say, who are caring for their children without any support from the State and without any help. Many of the people who have contacted us, especially through Kinship Care Ireland, would obviously like additional financial support, but they want emotional support for their children. They want to be assured that there will be aftercare provision for these children and that if they have been in State care, there will be as much in equivalent supports just to help these children to optimise their outcome. I think that is so fair. In a strategic sense, if we are looking at declining foster care families, surely the intelligent approach is to boost kinship care in this country. As the Deputy said, it is as long as it is in the absolute best interests of the child.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That is brilliant. I was just throwing that out as a comment. There was a worst-case scenario where somebody had been taken into care and given to one of the parent's siblings. The story I remember hearing said it all for me at times. This was probably Tusla's best attempt to maintain someone within a family unit. The uncle went around to say that the wee lad owed money for his drug debt. That is an absolute failing. While that might work on a checklist basis, I said Tusla had once again failed that child. That is a long time ago.
Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat. I left 21 seconds on the clock.
Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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They are two valid points. We are getting to the stage where we are getting thin on the ground for foster carers. We have to make sure we remain vigilant, checklists are followed and children are placed in only the best of care. I thank Dr. Keilthy, Dr. Muldoon and Ms Ward for their engagement on the easy and tough questions. They did not shy away. We appreciate all of their insights. They will help guide us in our work. I am sure we will have them back on many occasions over the coming years.