Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this Topical Issue debate on behalf of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Fitzgerald, who is out of the country.

Deputy Fitzgerald welcomes the findings from HIQA's first inspection against the national standards for the protection and welfare of children in the Carlow-Kilkenny local health area, HSE south region. In July 2010 the Government decided to prioritise the inspection of child protection by HIQA. These inspections are undertaken against standards developed by HIQA, as provided for by the Health Act 2007, and HIQA reports its findings to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. The standards are designed to follow a child's journey from referral to the HSE child protection system to ensure the service the child receives is of good quality and that where necessary the child is protected. The national standards, which were a priority of the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, were launched last July jointly by the Taoiseach and the Minister. In addition to following Children First, they introduce new standards for management in the use of resources, risk and quality systems and information regarding services.

The Minister was glad to see that, overall, services in Carlow-Kilkenny local health area were safe and were provided to children by a generally experienced and long-standing workforce. This is borne out by figures, produced by the HSE on a monthly basis, which show that 100% of children in care in this region have an allocated social worker and a care plan. The Carlow-Kilkenny local health area has a population of approximately 130,000, with both counties experiencing high population growth and immigration in recent years. The youth demographic for Carlow is higher than the national levels. There were 1,156 referrals to the child and family services child protection team between October 2011 and October 2012. Referrals that are not appropriate for the service are referred elsewhere. Child protection concerns are given priority. At the time of inspection there were 684 children in receipt of services. Some 78 assessments were ongoing, and 42 cases, including concerns regarding welfare issues, were awaiting assessment.

The recently published HIQA report stated that the services provided to children were safe and were provided by a well-experienced and long-standing workforce. The report shows that while social work relationships with other professionals, including the Garda, were good, and the quality of child protection and welfare assessments was satisfactory overall, there were inconsistencies and poor management of aspects of the duty system in parts of the area.

The Minister noted HIQA's finding that the HSE had not referred all cases of abuse and neglect to the Garda in a timely way and has asked officials in her Department to review with the Garda and the HSE matters related to the timing of the HSE's passing information of suspected abuse and neglect to the Garda.

The Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, would like to stress that at no time were children put at risk by delay on the part of social workers in notifying the Garda of possible criminal neglect.

Overall, HIQA inspectors found that the local health area management system did not meet the new standards, including monitoring and risk systems. The report noted that managers were unable to identify trends across the two counties. Although the standards are recent, they are welcome and will set the bar for all areas to meet in order to provide better quality services for children and their families. Most important, inspectors who spoke to children said that they had achieved good outcomes following the child protection interventions by the social workers. They saw the role of the social worker as important in their lives. Inspectors were told by one child that without the input of the social worker the child would not have been able to attend secondary school and prepare for third level education.

Arising from the report's publication, an action plan, which includes 57 actions, has been prepared to address the issues identified. The Minister is glad to note that many of these recommendations have already been implemented. She is confident that Mr. Gordon Jeyes and his team will implement the remaining actions required to improve services in this crucial area. It should be noted that this is the first inspection undertaken following the publication of the standards and, while the report shows there is considerable room for improvement in the planning and reviewing of service, the Minster is encouraged to note that inspectors noted good practice by social workers and there was no finding or evidence in the report that a child had been negatively impacted by the HSE.

See this speech in context