Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I wish to be clear that while an out-of-hours service was the key recommendation, the conclusion of the report was that it would not have saved those lives. We have to be clear about the context in which this recommendation was made. Nevertheless, as a result of that, in June 2009, the HSE with the Garda began operating a protocol for a place of safety under section 12 of the Child Care Act, whereby a child who in previous times would have spent a night in a Garda station would now be placed with a fostering service until social work services were available. This is working very well from the point of view of the Garda, the HSE and those children who have been referred to it.

It is interesting to note the volume of children coming into this place of safety service is very low, which makes us wonder whether a full-scale out-of-hours service is necessary. In any case, under the implementation plan, we have committed to doing two pilot areas, which will begin in 2010, in order to have an out-of-hours service outside of Dublin. Those recommendations will be acted on.

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