John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Another shocking but all too familiar report on children at risk of neglect was published this week. The audit of the management of neglect cases in three parts of the country, including my own area of Waterford, covered the period 2005 to 2010 and highlighted what most Deputies working in their constituencies are already aware of, namely, the systematic and ongoing impact staffing embargoes and lost posts in the HSE are having on children at risk.

This report is a damning indictment of the previous Government. It told of vulnerable children left without an allocated social worker, despite receiving as many as 30 referrals from separate agencies, of chronic understaffing in the psychological services - for instance, in Roscommon - which left 180 children waiting up to two years to be seen, and of caseloads often double the recommended number for a social workers. The suggestion was made that some professionals were not focused on the children's harsh everyday lives because they simply used the word "unhygienic" to describe situations such as beds saturated in urine, a complete absence of heat in houses, sometimes no food in houses and dog excrement on sitting room floors. These inherently unsafe arrangements still prevail around the country despite what the HSE might tell the Tánaiste or me. I spoke to a social workers at 8 o'clock this morning who told me what is happening in parts of the country. I also spoke to two social workers yesterday.

Figures show that more than 80 cases of suspected child abuse or neglect are being reported every day to social services. An investigation by the Ombudsman for Children found that social services failed to properly assess or follow-up hundreds of reports of children at risk, abuse or neglect in a timely manner. The Ombudsman cited one case where it took four months to organise a home visit to a seven year old who was witnessing domestic violence and another case where it took three months to organise a home visit to 16 year old girl where there were concerns that she was being savagely sexually abused.

Does the Tánaiste agree that the overburdened HSE staff are still working in a system which is leading to poor outcomes for some children? Can he explain why the HSE is still failing to implement the Children First guidelines, which were published more than ten years ago? Does he agree it is unacceptable that after 4 p.m. on a Friday in some parts of this country, there is no social worker available until 9 a.m. the following Monday, that gardaí are having to implement section 12 to take vulnerable children from their homes and be their social worker for a few hours until they get them to an adult psychiatric unit until they are seen on a Monday morning? Surely this is unacceptable in 2013.

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