Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Whips and the spokespersons of the Opposition for allowing this debate to happen as quickly as it has and for their understanding in this matter. I congratulate Ms Norah Gibbons on the first-class report she has produced. She has mapped out a way forward in the very difficult area of reporting on child care tragedies. Thus, we can ensure they are reported in a timely fashion and we can restore some confidence in the child protection system and try to defeat the narrative that there is a culture of covering up. This underlines the great difficulty associated with publications of the kind in question.

I want to underline my regret and apology to the very brave and resilient children concerned, who must understand that all our thoughts are with them on foot of the putting into the public domain of the very horrific details of their cases. I acknowledge their bravery in allowing the report of the inquiry to be published. That publication has come about with the co-operation of Mr. Justice McMenamin.

By opening this debate on the report into the child care inquiry published yesterday, I am mindful of the judgment of Mr. Justice McMenamin in granting the permissive order paving the way for publication. Having consulted all the children, he carefully weighed in the balance the further hurt for them that would accompany publication against the public good and the hope that publication might prevent a recurrence of tragedies of this nature in the future. On balance, he ruled in favour of publication but gave clear guidance on how the matters should be reported. I am in no doubt that Deputies will share my concern for the children and seek to avoid any further hurt arising from this debate. I note, in particular, Mr. Justice McMenamin's comments that the children should not be asked to relive the experience. In his words, "the children want it understood that they are normal young people".

These children were failed in the first instance by their parents, their primary care givers, and were subsequently failed by State services when signs which pointed to the need to remove them from obvious risk were ignored. It is a damning indictment that a proper decision on the appropriate care for the children was not taken until one of them actually asked to be taken into State care. A child knew that the lack of care, or, more correctly, neglect, was abnormal and yet trained professionals did not identify the warning signs. Yesterday, the HSE gave an unreserved apology for its failure to protect these children. I apologise to each of the six children for the fact that the State did not intervene in time to remove them from such horrendous circumstances.

The immediate concern today is the welfare of the children in question. It is imperative that all measures be taken to preserve their anonymity and allow them to get on with their lives. I ask all involved in this matter to accept their responsibilities in this regard and not to add further to these young people's hardship.

The report into this matter up to 2006 highlights the tragic consequences that obtain when children are failed by people in authority. The children's voices were not heard at a time when their needs were immense. It is imperative that the lessons around encompassing children's voices into child protection policy be learned. I took receipt of the report yesterday afternoon and it will be the subject of close study and assessment. However, my initial reaction is that the failures identified cannot be attributed to a lack of resources or legislative or constitutional gaps. The report finds that, notwithstanding the involvement of a range of professionals, important child protection concerns were not identified and acted upon.

The report raises many questions, not least among which is why concerns of ongoing neglect did not lead to decisive action at an earlier stage. The report finds that, with one exception, the children's needs were not subject to a formal assessment, staff were not sufficiently alert to indicators of ongoing neglect and reports of neglect to the HSE did not trigger an appropriate response. The report also finds that the statements of the parents were accepted at face value when evidence to the contrary was obvious. I am particularly concerned that the views of the children were not listened to. In the main, the inquiry found that the deficits were in the area of social work practice. I note also the report's findings on the social work management's failure to manage the legal aspects of this case during a crucial period.

The report indicates that, despite the good intentions of staff, appropriate and necessary actions were not taken at key points. This is a matter of deep concern. At this point, I wish to acknowledge the work done by social workers. As Members are aware, these individuals work in difficult and emotionally challenging circumstances and, unlike other health professionals, their intervention is often resisted by those they strive to serve.

Recent studies in the UK have examined why previous reforms in the context of social services had not delivered expected improvements in the context of social work. These studies found that social workers needed to improve their use of professional judgment, while bearing in mind that there is no guarantee of certainty where parents deliberately mislead professionals involved in assessment. However, it is important that the development of social work skills and capacity through improvements in training is ongoing. I note that the report makes many recommendations around a variety of measures aimed at improving social work capacity and staff retention. These recommendations include several relating to training, management and professional development.

The report published yesterday highlights that changes need to be made in the way we do our business. Reform of our child protection services is necessary to ensure, in so far as is possible, that the likelihood of such events will be reduced in the future. Regarding child protection, a number of specific steps are already being taken in the context of the Ryan implementation plan. Although the recommendations in the current report are more detailed in nature than those contained in the Ryan report, there are a number of shared recommendations which are already being addressed. These include recommendations on the education, training, induction and supervision of social work staff, provision of management and supervision training to managers and the implementation of the Children First guidelines.

The Ryan implementation plan spans a four-year timeframe and is deliberately ambitious in what it sets out to achieve. In establishing clearly identified actions with ambitious timescales, we are challenging ourselves to improve standards and reform services. That we are doing this in a time of extreme economic difficulty only serves to highlight the commitment of the Government to improving services for children in the care of the State. The allocation of an additional €15 million in the current year further reflects the Government's commitment in this regard.

Successive public debates on child protection have indicated that our policy and legislative framework is sound, but that implementation and service delivery must be overhauled. What the Ryan implementation plan sets out to address is the reality that, despite this strong legislative and policy base, service delivery for children in need and children at risk is not sufficiently co-ordinated, is unevenly distributed nationally and must be improved. In addition, social workers must be aware of the impact and long-lasting effects of chronic neglect and act accordingly.

One of the principal commitments in the Ryan implementation plan relates to the need to ensure all children are safe and that those in care have an allocated social worker and a care plan. This will contribute to ensuring children's voices are heard. To this end, the Government has committed to filling 270 HSE social worker posts by the end of 2011 and to the front-loading of this initiative in 2010 through the filling of 200 posts. This initiative is designed to target resources at front-line services in order to ensure that the HSE fulfils its statutory obligations. The Oireachtas has voted that the necessary finance be provided. The filling of social work posts has been exempted from the public service moratorium on recruitment and replacement of staff and there is an explicit commitment in the HSE service plan for this year, as laid before the Oireachtas, that these posts will be filled.

I met senior HSE representatives earlier today to review the progress being made in this regard and they assured me that the 200 posts will be filled by the end of December. The HSE has also informed me that where any of these child protection posts were filled from other areas of the HSE, these vacancies will also be back-filled. The recruitment of these additional social workers is critical in terms of progressing the implementation plan and in ensuring the allocation of a named social worker to each child in care and the availability of care plans for all of these children. I have been assured by the HSE that this matter is being afforded the highest priority.

Much more must be done to build a strong and responsive service for children and families. It is my view that a fresh approach is required within the HSE in order to deliver the change we all wish to see. In the course of my ongoing discussions with the HSE, I raised the need for the appointment of an individual, at a national management level, who has a proven track record in the reform of children and family services. The process of recruiting this person is nearing completion and I hope an announcement will be made in the very near future.

The creation of the new position to which I refer is a logical development and is very much consistent with the emphasis on strengthening management so that children and family services receive priority within the HSE. The appointment is being accompanied by a restructuring of the service at national, regional and local level in order to strengthen front line delivery of services. Managers need to be aware of what is happening locally and regionally in order to ensure that a good quality of children's services is applied consistently across the country. The HSE has also developed standardised business processes in order that children, regardless of their geographical location, receive a good quality of service. This and the national child care information system - which is a national ICT system - will provide a basis for collecting and reporting on the delivery of front-line services and will strengthen accountability within the HSE.

Another key priority for me, as Minister of State with responsibility for children and youth affairs, was the commitment to publish a revised version of the Children First guidelines. The original guidelines, first published in 1999, were revised and placed on the Department's website in December of last year. This was done in line with the commitment in the Ryan implementation plan. A number of amendments have been made in the interim to take on board, for example, recommendations from the Ombudsman for Children and the recent guidance provided by HIQA to the HSE with regard to the deaths of children in care and serious adverse incidents. Arrangements for the printing and dissemination of the guidelines are being finalised. In addition, legislation is to be drafted to provide a duty to comply with these guidelines for all bodies in receipt of State funding.

I will bring proposals to Government before the end of this year in which will be set out a comprehensive implementation framework. This will include a particular emphasis on strengthening the audit and inspection framework. This is to ensure that the guidelines will be implemented more effectively and correctly across all sectors working with children.

Yesterday, I stated publicly that I remain fully committed to the holding of a children's referendum and pledged to redouble my efforts to advance the cause of the referendum within the Government. However, we in this House must be honest when we speak to members of the public. To suggest that if a referendum had been passed, the children at the centre of this inquiry would have been saved from the trauma and horror inflicted at the hands of their parents is incorrect. Sufficient powers were conferred on social workers under the Child Care Act 1991 to allow them to take children into the care of the State when risks were identified and where there was evidence of parental failure. There was no legislative gap. The problem, according to the report, was that the health board failed to pursue and effect a care order. It should also be noted that when the health board pursued care orders in the correct manner in 2004, there was no legal or constitutional impediment in existence at that time.

The special rapporteur on child protection to the Oireachtas, Mr. Geoffrey Shannon, made this point on "Morning Ireland" earlier today. He said that although he had campaigned for a children's referendum for the past ten years, he could not argue that the Constitution prevented or hampered these children from being taken into State care.

He said:

All of the legislation was there and I heard yesterday people making reference to the fact that if we had a constitutional referendum, this case would have been decided differently. I respectfully disagree. The Child Care Act of 1991 allows for an application for what is called a supervision order.

The Ombudsman for Children made the same point this lunchtime when interviewed on "The News At One". Again stating that we should aspire to constitutional change, she said no constitution will prevent children from being abused.

There are 5,836 children in care today, and care orders were applied for and sought in respect of many of these children. The point I am making is that the Child Care Act is employed weekly in the District Courts as the statutory tool to take children into care. I have conducted approximately a dozen town hall meetings with social workers around the country over the course of the past 12 months. I routinely ask whether the Constitution limits them in making care order applications but the response is generally that there is no such impediment.

Deputies will be anxious to hear the exact status of the current proposal on the children's rights referendum. I presented a copy of the third and final report of the joint committee to Cabinet in early March and it decided that, in view of the complex nature of the issues involved, all Ministers and Departments, as well as the Attorney General, should consider the report and examine the implications of the proposed wording for their individual areas of responsibility. I know that some Deputies have voiced alarm that the Cabinet would ask each Department to examine the proposed wording but to do otherwise would be irresponsible in the extreme. We cannot introduce far-reaching changes to the Constitution without asking senior civil servants what are the likely consequences Departments and the likely costs. This is part of a due diligence exercise that must be gone through by any Government regardless of shape or colour.

I listened to Ms Gemma Hussey speak a couple of Sundays ago about the terrible problems caused by the wording contained in the 1983 referendum. The language was too vague and it took four subsequent referendums to try to clarify the position, and we cannot afford to repeat those mistakes. A range of unintended policy and resource implications have been identified and in view of these difficulties, I presented to the Government the policy objectives for the referendum and was granted Government approval to develop revised wording for an amendment in co-operation with the office of the Attorney General. New wording, which takes into account the proposals put forward by the committee, is being drafted by the Attorney General's office with policy support provided by my office.

I intend to bring a memorandum to Cabinet very shortly that will contain wording that differs from the committee's proposal but seeks to maintain the full range of policy goals set out by the committee. The matter is receiving my full attention and in addition to Cabinet discussions I have had meetings with the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Attorney General, and the Minister for Justice and Law Reform with a view to moving the proposal forward.

People will be rightly concerned about accountability in respect of the individual and corporate failure to identify and respond to the needs of children in the case reported yesterday. As stated, there were social work failures in the direct assessment of the children's position and management deficits in understanding legal options and the powers conferred on the health board by the Child Care Act 1991 to intervene on behalf of the children.

A spokesperson for the HSE stated this morning that the report would be handed to the regional director of operations for the HSE west and a human resources disciplinary process would commence. I remind the House that despite the temptation to call for immediate action against the staff involved, it is important that due process is followed. I am assured by the HSE that a fast turnaround in this respect is anticipated. We need only look to the UK and Haringey council in the wake of the Baby P case to see the complexities involved in these matters. Such remarks should not be read as comfort to those who may have failed to adhere to minimum professional standards and they are merely intended to highlight the dangers associated with a rush to judgment.

I thank the inquiry team and particularly the chair, Ms Norah Gibbons, for the tremendous work in producing a report of this nature. It is my opinion that this report is a template for future work in ensuring transparency in children's services.

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