Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

We return to address the recommendations of the Ryan report as the crisis in child protection in this State is being highlighted as never before. That is only right and it is long overdue that we are addressing the implementation of those recommendations. As I stated at the time of the publication of the Ryan report last year, as well as dealing with the abuses of the past we need most urgently to address the protection of children today or else we will have further Ryan reports, only this time they will deal with tragic failures to protect children of our own time.

Yesterday, the family and friends of Daniel McAnaspie laid him to rest. Go ndéana Dia trócaire ar a anam. Three days earlier the Health Service Executive published its latest figures for the deaths of children known to the HSE child protection service. That brings to 188 the number of children who died in the past decade, either in State care or who were known to the social services. That is a truly shocking figure. Each and every one of those deaths was a tragedy. Some died of natural causes, some were due to suicide, drug overdoses, accidents or, as in the case of Daniel McAnaspie, unlawful killings. We know about Daniel's case because the information has come into the public domain. His family has been brave in speaking out. Not all families wish to do so and their right to confidentiality must be respected, but we need to know the circumstances and we need to know exactly if and how the State failed these children. How else will we learn the lessons of these failure?. This much is certain; the death rate among children in State care and among children known to the social services is far higher than among the general population. These are the vulnerable children, the marginalised children, the children in poverty or at risk of poverty, the children who have not benefited from education, the children who have suffered abuse, the children who become prey to drug pushers and other vicious social predators.

Speaking at Daniel's funeral yesterday, Fr. Peter McVerry said that the boy had been neglected by the State and in that neglect we saw the failure of a dysfunctional and under-resourced child care service. The Government should heed his words, especially his identification of the need not for 200 additional social workers but for 1,200. The Minister of State was quick to dismiss the call by Fr. Peter McVerry, but he should seriously rethink his response because I have no doubt that Fr. McVerry was hitting the requirement absolutely spot-on. The latest figures make it all the more urgent that the HSE releases the files on all these children to the special investigation team established by the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews. If legal obstacles really exist they should be removed as a matter of urgency. The Government cannot even tell us when it will publish legislation in this regard. It should publish in full its advice from the Attorney General.

These figures come at a time when the Government is cutting back social welfare, education and health services in a way that hits marginalised families and vulnerable children worst. These are the essential supports which help address child poverty and neglect. Undermining these services through cuts will condemn more children. A few days before the figures were published the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills announced the axing of librarian posts for school libraries in schools serving disadvantaged communities. That is extremely callous and also very short-sighted. It brings only shame on this entire Administration.

The Government must take heed of the view expressed by the Ombudsman for Children, Ms Emily Logan, that the in camera rule, whereby child care proceedings are not held publicly, is often being disproportionately applied and hampering investigations, and that any proposed legislative change should take account of this. It is clear that there has long been a crisis of leadership and management at the highest level in child protection in the State given that an investigation established by a Minister could be frustrated in this way by a State body supposedly under the authority of the Minister, the HSE.

Let me consider the specific recommendations of the Ryan report. The very last one states, "'Children First: The National Guidelines for the Protection and Welfare of Children' should be uniformly and consistently implemented throughout the State in dealing with allegations of abuse." The recent report of the Ombudsman for Children concluded that the HSE, from its establishment in 2005 until 2009, made insufficient efforts to drive forward implementation of Children First, the child protection guidelines. Poor administration was uncovered right across the HSE. Clearly, this affects not only the process of identifying and protecting children at risk but also the system of care provision, which has been exposed repeatedly as totally inadequate.

The implementation plan for the recommendations of the Ryan report, published by the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, in July 2009, made a series of commitments regarding Children First. These include the drafting of legislation by December 2010 to provide that all staff employed by the State and staff employed in agencies in receipt of funding from the Exchequer will have a duty to comply with the Children First national guidelines; the development by HIQA of outcome-based standards for child protection services, also by December 2010; and the linking of compliance with the Children First national guidelines will be linked to all relevant inspection processes across the education, health and justice sectors by December 2011.

Specifically regarding the uniform and consistent implementation of Children First throughout the State, the implementation plan stated this was "ongoing". It is difficult to square that with the report of the Ombudsman for Children, which I have cited twice, or with the fact that key commitments in this regard are not due for delivery until December 2010 and December 2011.

The second last recommendation states, "The full personal records of children in care must be maintained." The commentary on this recommendation states:

Reports, files and records essential to validate the child's identity and their social, family and educational history must be retained. These records need to be kept secure and up to date. Details should be kept of all children who go missing from care. The privacy of such records must be respected.

It is clear from the current debacle regarding the deaths of children in care that this recommendation was very necessary. However, we must all ask the extent to which it has been really implemented.

The big question concerns why the Government and the HSE are constantly playing catch-up. Why does it take a seemingly endless series of exposés, investigations and reports for them to begin to get things right? The latest example is the audit of more than 1,000 foster-care files by HIQA in the Dublin North-West and Dublin North-Central areas that has found well over 200 children had placements with unapproved foster parents for significant periods or were without care plans.

The audit found that some children in State care have not had a visit from a social worker for up to ten years or more. It found record-keeping so poor that inspectors have had difficulties establishing an accurate number for children in foster care, and many files were either incomplete, incorrectly recorded or missing. In some cases, items belonging to children had fallen out of files with no identification to attach to the file or child. Children as young as five were placed in supported lodgings, a more independent form of care designed for people in their mid to late teens.

The report on the Monageer tragedy highlighted the vital need for an out-of-hours social work crisis intervention service. The implementation plan said the HSE will put in place such a service, built into the existing HSE out-of-hours service, and that this would be piloted initially in two areas of the country. That is far too lax an approach and the provision of this vital service must be speeded up.

The Ryan report made key recommendations on policy. It stated child care policy should be child-centred, the needs of the child should be paramount and national child care policy should be clearly articulated. The report stated:

The overall policy of childcare should respect the rights and dignity of the child and have as its primary focus their safe care and welfare. Services should be tailored to the developmental, educational and health needs of the particular child. Adults entrusted with the care of children must prioritise the well-being and protection of those children above personal, professional or institutional loyalty.

The implementation plan is out of date now with regard to this recommendation because we have since had the report of the all-party committee and its unanimous recommendation on wording for a constitutional amendment on children. In the view of Deputies of all parties in this House, the amendment would form a sound basis for all child care policy. I again urge the Government to make a firm commitment to hold this year the referendum to strengthen the rights of children in the Constitution.

I want to reiterate an issue that I raised in the House on previous occasions and I ask the Minister of State to respond thereto specifically. In 1990, the Comptroller and Auditor General carried out a review of the Department of Education's special schools and it found that the children in those schools were not being accommodated in the institutions appropriate to their needs, that the facilities were not being managed properly and that the Department was not carrying out its oversight role in a satisfactory manner.

In 1992 the Committee of Public Accounts, having considered the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, recommended that the Departments of Justice, Health, and Education, and the then health boards, jointly address the problem of these special schools and of all children in residential care.

These recommendations were not acted upon. The point is that the schools in question represented the end of the line for troubled children who ended up in court because behavioural, social and family problems were not properly addressed early on. That is still happening, despite the fact that the first report was issued 20 years ago. The scandal is that it is happening along the pathway of so-called care supposedly provided by the State.

The reports to which I have referred date from 1990 and 1992. It is bad that two decades have elapsed since the first without action. Surely we should be setting target dates for the implementation of the recommendations such that we will not end up in a similar position two decades after the publication of the second, to everyone's shame in this House.

Without question, these reports represented early alarm bells. Alarm bells have rung periodically since their publication but precious little was done, with the results we see so sadly today and which have been exposed recently in the litany of tragedies that has shocked our nation.

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