Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister and Whip's office for facilitating my request to hold a debate following the publication of the national review panel's report three weeks ago. I commend Professor Helen Buckley on the work she and the national review panel did in addressing the cases highlighted in the report. I also compliment the work done since the establishment of her office on introducing procedures to address this important issue. The national review panel was established following concerns raised in respect of the Health Service Executive's child protection service and the lack of transparency regarding child deaths. In parallel with the establishment of the panel, an independent review by Mr. Geoffrey Shannon and Ms Nora Gibbons proceeded into deaths of children in the preceding ten years. This review and the ongoing work of the national review panel will be critical in assessing what has gone wrong with the child protection services and, unfortunately, investigating serious incidents and deaths to ensure an audit is done to determine how each of the children affected was treated by the child protection services and to know precisely what lessons can be learned from each incident, with a view to improving the services provided to all children.

The report by the national review panel highlighted a number of deficiencies in the child protection system, including several breaches of the Children First guidelines, inadequate supervision of practices in the Health Service Executive and family services in a number of cases and the absence of a standardised method of assessing the needs of children and young people who come to the attention of social services. The report also exposed the need for specialist training for social workers to improve investigative skills and assist in engaging with difficult to reach families. It also highlighted the need to develop additional protocols for children who abscond from care and the need to provide after care support as children make the transition to adulthood. Worryingly, the report states the national review panel's workload is virtually impossible to carry out in full owing to the number and breadth of matters it must investigate. These cases are not files and piles of paper but represent a child death or serious incident. It has been reported that the panel was asked to review 51 cases, including 35 deaths, since its establishment in March 2010. It is imperative that the panel is given the resources to deal with those cases which come before it. I welcome the fact that the Minister has asked HIQA to look into this and into the scope of those cases being examined by the national review panel. I urge her to ensure that HIQA promptly conducts its assessment of the national review panel's terms of reference, and should additional resources and appropriate changes to the terms of reference be required, I urge her to act on them immediately. Given the poor record of the State in monitoring child deaths and serious incidents over the years, we should ensure that, as of today, we will not repeat the mistakes of the past. The incidents where the system fails children should be examined immediately and remedies should be put in place where appropriate.

There is no doubting the importance of creating a full Cabinet position for the issue of children and youth services. I welcome the fact that this has occurred. It has followed progressive steps made in recent years, starting with the decision to establish the position of Minister of State with responsibility for children, followed by the decision to elevate the position to a super junior Ministry. The Minister of State with responsibility for children could attend Cabinet meetings, albeit not be a full voting member.

I support the Minister's efforts to put Children First on a statutory basis and I know efforts to bring forward that legislation are ongoing. However, we have recently gone backwards in some respects in the management of this brief. It was unfortunate that commitments given by political parties before the election on the timing of a children's rights referendum were reneged upon once those parties entered the Government. There is now a commitment to hold the referendum next year. Unlike the Labour Party and Fine Gael, I will not put too much pressure on demands for a specific date. However, I urge the Minister to continue working with that. It was very unfortunate that one of the Government's first actions was to renege on a commitment to bring that forward to the presidential election date.

One of the lessons from the presidential election and the two referenda held on the same day is the need to ensure that full consultation with the public takes place. Engagement with the public is crucial in terms of ensuring the success of any referendum proposal. When we come to set a date for the children's rights referendum, which will hopefully take place next year, it is important that it should be on its own and not held in conjunction with a referendum on abolishing the Seanad, as has been suggested. It will be a historic move by the State to improve the rights of the child and child protection issues. These issues have been highlighted by the child review panel, while the independent review panel set up by Geoffrey Shannon and Norah Gibbons will undoubtedly show that we have failed in the past as well. It is important that this referendum is held on its own and given priority by all involved when we try to pass it next year.

The other key issue we have neglected in recent months is the situation on social workers in the system. Professor Helen Buckley's report shows that social workers are the core of the child protection system. I note the Minister's commitment to ensure that the 60 social workers to be employed in 2011, as part of the Ryan report recommendations, will be in their posts by the end of the year. However, when assessing the current number of social workers in the system, I feel we have gone backwards since the Government entered office. As of 31 September, there were 2,429 whole-time equivalent social workers being employed by the State. On 1 January, that number was 2,432, which is slightly more. This shows that we have gone backwards since the start of the year. We now have a recruitment freeze and cannot replace social workers who go on maternity leave, nor can we replace temporary posts. I have also sought information from the Department and the HSE about the replacement of those who have been retiring. Temporary posts are there to replace people who are sick, on career breaks or whatever. As these contracts expire, they are not being renewed, and this means that one fewer social worker is being employed. This is putting additional strain on social worker offices across the country. I have been hearing at first hand examples of how offices are coming under massive pressure as a result.

I urge the Minister to remove the recruitment pause on maternity leave, temporary leave and temporary posts for social workers. By not doing that, we are regressing instead of progressing. In many respects, it makes a fallacy of highlighting the fact that we are due to employ 60 additional recruitment workers. If we look at how many are working daily in the system, we may be seeing fewer workers. I know it is not easy due to the financial situation, but it is crucially important that we continue to resource properly our system for social workers. This will be especially important in light of the legislation being brought forward on mandatory reporting, which will lead to additional pressures in the system as well.

I support the Minister's efforts to bring in a uniform system for dealing with reports across the country. However, it is not sufficient. It also needs to be resourced. I have expressed concerns to her before about moving immediately to mandatory reporting without first having assessed what resource implications that might mean. It is certainly an issue.

Along with Deputy Ó Caoláin, I attended the pre-budget submission made by Focus Ireland yesterday. The meeting also focused on the issue of mandatory aftercare for children leaving the care system. I urge the Minister to remember that for children leaving the system who have depended on the State for services and protection, our duty of care does not end once they reach the age of 18. It was disappointing - this view has been eloquently expressed in the past by Deputy Ó Caoláin - that the Government did not provide for mandatory aftercare in the Child Care (Amendment) Act, which was one of the first Bills brought through the House by the Minister. I urge the Minister to implement this. We all need to work together to ensure that, as a State, we improve our record in that regard.

Once again I thank the Minister and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for giving time to this important issue and assure the Minister of my co-operation in dealing with the challenges we know are coming down the track, particularly that of the referendum, on which we will work together next year.

See this speech in context