Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I am informed by the Health Service Executive that it expects to publish the report of the independent inquiry into the Roscommon abuse case in the coming weeks.

The report into the death of Kelly Fitzgerald, published in 1995, contained in excess of 40 recommendations. Those recommendations were presented to the then Western Health Board and adopted in full by it. Several of the report's recommendations required consideration at national level, including: the need for amendment of the Constitution to include a statement of the constitutional rights of children; the need for the establishment at a national level of a system for the setting and monitoring of child protection standards to promote examples of good practice and to inquire into serious failures of practice; and the need to introduce a system of mandatory reporting.

Issues relevant to the rights of the child have been considered by the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children which recently published its third and final report. That report will now be considered by Government. Issues relating to national guidelines for the protection and welfare of children and the conduct of reviews into serious incidents are addressed in the Government's implementation plan in response to the recommendation of the Ryan commission. The issue of mandatory reporting was previously considered. International evidence suggests that mandatory reporting can overload existing child protection systems with high volumes of reports, often resulting in no commensurate increase in substantiated cases. The concern, therefore, is that child protection resources would be diverted into an extensive administrative system with no guarantee of increased protection for children.

A number of the additional recommendations in the report highlighted the need for significantly improved and standardised business processes to ensure consistency in service delivery. In this regard the HSE recently has completed a national project designed to standardise the child welfare and protection business processes across all regions. The process of implementation is now being commenced.

The report into the death of Kelly Fitzgerald stated:

we do not believe it is possible to guarantee that children will not be abused but we believe that Health Boards, as child protection agencies, must aim to ensure that all children at risk are accurately identified and that intervention is effective in reducing the level of risk to a child or removing it altogether.

This remains a principal focus of the Government and its agencies as it seeks to strengthen the existing child welfare and protection system.

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