Paul Connaughton (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. There are few issues more important than child protection. In that regard, I strongly welcome the creation of the new Department of Children and Youth Affairs, which is reflective of the priority afforded to child welfare issues by the Government. Unfortunately, we are all aware that over many years this issue was not given the importance it should have been and certainly was not enforced as it should have been. We are seeing the effects of that now.

I speak as somebody who has worked for the past four years with children and young people in a youth organisation in Galway city. One of the most pressing issues I encountered in working with these young people relates to Garda vetting. We have many upstanding people with fine qualities working with young people, but the Garda vetting process leads to great frustration among those who wish to help in any way they can. We must ensure the process works more effectively in order to avoid situations where people are waiting months to secure Garda clearance. Unfortunately, we have seen situations where, by the time people are cleared to work with young people, they may already have left the organisation having been unable to do the job they wished to do. To clarify, I am not suggesting that we take any shortcuts when it comes to Garda vetting procedures. However, considering the pressure on many organisations, most of which depend to a great extent on volunteers to continue their work, it is imperative that we resolve this issue.

The Children First national guidelines for the protection and welfare of children are excellent. I have received training on those guidelines in the course of my work. The problem is that they are not being universally implemented across all organisations in the State. I do not mean to suggest that certain groups are not doing the proper training; they absolutely are. However, there must be a more uniform approach. This should involve a requirement on all staff to participate in refresher training on a two to three-year basis. One never knows when one will need to use the training. Working with young people involves awareness of abuse, whether physical or emotional, and one can only acquire the skills to deal with that if one is sufficiently trained. A child who has not eaten for several days may seem happy and healthy, but that amounts to a form of abuse. Only staff who are both experienced and well trained will pick up on that.

Children First must be rolled out across all agencies and staff, and it must be done on a consistent basis over a period of two to three years in order to ensure people working with youth organisations can do their job as well as possible. There are many organisations doing fantastic work, all of which have one common goal, namely, to take care of young people and help them to develop. However, the multi-agency approach is not working as it was intended to do. Unfortunately, due to funding cutbacks, some organisations are competing for certain strands of funding rather than working together. It is in those circumstances that children and young people fall through the cracks. I acknowledge that there are confidentiality issues, but if we are serious about providing young people with the care they need and deserve, there must be an effective multi-agency approach. This should focus on co-operation between agencies on a case-by-case basis, with staff working together to devise the most appropriate plan of care for individual children.

I welcome the priority afforded to child protection issues through the creation of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and I commend the Minister on the great work she is doing. While funding cuts will make her make her job more difficult, she is the right person for the role. I encourage her to continue to work with agencies and groups in communities throughout the State. They are the people with the expertise and experience and who best understand what needs to be done.

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