Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I share the Deputy's sympathy with social workers who work under great pressure and tremendous difficulty. When a child dies in the care of the State, there is no question that he has been failed in some way. Through this inquiry, we must establish how he was failed and make sure it does not happen again.

Much has happened since the death of David Foley in 2005. In particular, the agenda for children's services became a core of child protection policy in this State in 2007. The principles of that are early intervention and prevention, to move away from crisis management towards the earliest possible intervention and family support services. We put in place a knowledge management strategy. We have already standardised the business process regarding the referral of children and initial assessment. We want to move towards further standardisation. As the Deputy points out, the service is not uniform throughout the State and that is partly a legacy——

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