Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)

The death of every child is a tragedy and I offer every sympathy to the families whose children were reported upon by this review panel. It is interesting to note in the review that no case of death or serious incident was related to an action or inaction of the HSE child protection services. That is a very important point coming from this review and worth noting.

It is not surprising, given this is a new process, that the review panel has remarked on the nature of the actual process. Some of the guidance it has been given, along with the suggestion that this ought to be reviewed presents a challenge. The report states, for example:

Is it necessary, or even beneficial, for every case to be reviewed? It would, and perhaps, should, be possible for the independent chair of the NRP to select representative cases from which a maximum of learning can be extracted without running the risk, as has happened in other jurisdictions, of services being drowned in a flood of similar conclusions and recommendations.

The panel is reviewing the guidelines it was given. I have met with the HIQA which set the original guidelines. It is important that the HIQA should review what has emerged from this report and make some recommendations, taking up some of the points Dr. Buckley made in regard to the very wide remit. I asked the HIQA to review the guidance already given and it is engaging actively with the national review panel and the HSE children and family services in this regard. These will be considered by the HIQA in the first instance, as well as by my officials in the context of related policy and legislative developments already in train. The first annual report is subject to consideration by the HSE and I would expect that any measures falling directly to the HSE that are necessary to strengthen the effectiveness of the review process will be implemented. I await comments from the HIQA. The future of the review panel will be determined by its response to its first report and by the comments of Dr. Buckley and the other people involved in it. There are matters to be learnt from this report about how we should approach this work in the future.

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