Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The purpose of the proposed constitutional amendment is to recognise children in their own right within the Constitution. It also acknowledges that each child enjoys rights and deserves certain protections from the State by virtue of the fact that, as a child, he or she is vulnerable. The referendum will not address all wider issues that impact on children.

This referendum is the fundamental backdrop to the wider programme for change for children being pursued by the Government. These reforms focus on intervention to ensure the safety and welfare of children and to ensure that child protection services can respond proportionately to all child protection concerns. Central to the programme for change for children is the plan to take child protection services out of the Health Service Executive, HSE, and establish a new dedicated child and family support agency. This agency will be fully operational in 2013 and will mean a move to a situation where child and family welfare will be the sole focus of a single dedicated agency, overseen by a single dedicated Department.

The report of the taskforce, which I set up to advise on how to best organise services for children, was published in July. Its report maps out an executive agenda for the development of services so that we can do the very best for parents, children and families. Ahead of the establishment of the new agency, an additional €21 million in funding has been made available to the HSE child and family services in 2012, reflecting the priority attached by the Government to the reform of child welfare and protection services.

Since February 2011, there has been an increase of 69 whole-time equivalents and 86 individual child and family social workers with an increase in the proportion of children with an allocated social worker.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

Since taking office last year, it has been evident to me that there is a particular need to improve the quality and accuracy of information available from the HSE in child protection services, together with a need to provide more timely and meaningful information. The introduction of the national child care information system, NCCIS, will help to greatly improve performance in this area. I am pleased to say good progress is being made by the HSE with regard to the introduction of this system, which will help to significantly improve the level, quality and accessibility of information in respect of children and family services.

The matter of resources for services to children will be considered by the Government in the context of the overall budgetary arrangements for 2013. While it is not open to me, in that context, to pre-empt decisions to be made by Government, I would point out that the Government continues to invest very significantly in services for children across a range of areas. The Government will continue this approach, to the greatest possible extent, in dealing with the serious financial challenges facing the country overall.

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