Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yes, I am sharing time with Deputy McLellan. I apologise to the Minister for missing the opening lines of her contribution. The Second Stage was reached much quicker than I had anticipated this afternoon. I was not only finalising my own contribution but was preparing for the Joint Committee on Health and Children and, as Deputy Troy already has noted, a discussion with the Ombudsman for Children in respect of child detention centres. I send my apologies for being unable to attend to Deputy Buttimer and the other members of the Joint Committee on Health and Children, as well as to Ms Logan.

I welcome this Bill and the establishment of the child and family agency. Sinn Féin Members have long campaigned and called for it here in the Oireachtas over recent years. Sinn Féin welcomed the appointment of a Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, in the form of Deputy Fitzgerald, and the establishment of the new Department. It was an important decision of the new Government early in its term and was something for which Sinn Féin also had long called and advocated. In a referendum last year, the people endorsed a constitutional amendment strengthening the rights of children. At the time, I stated it must be followed up by robust legislation and by the allocation of the resources needed to vindicate children’s rights. This Bill is a step forward although I believe there is a very long way to go.

While the appointment of the Minister and the establishment of the Department arguably came at the worst possible time economically, it also could be argued that in economically harsh times, greater protection and enhanced representation for children is needed more than ever. I take that latter view and precisely the same point applies to the agency established by this Bill. In that context, the allocation of a budget of €439 million to the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs in 2013 is modest to say the least, albeit an increase on 2012. As one continues to consider the implications of the Anglo Irish Bank tapes, one contrasts the tens of billions of euro of public money shovelled into that cesspit with the less than half a billion euro allocated this year to the Department responsible for the children of Ireland. One of the smallest allocations in the Revised Estimates for the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, which was dealt with at the select sub-committee last week, is a €2.5 million State contribution for the area-based response to child poverty. I note the Minister stated the bulk of the funding for this programme, €29 million, comes from Atlantic Philanthropies. This covers just three disadvantaged areas in this State and the Minister hopes another three will be added next year. It must be stated there is a bitter irony in this, as one has the Government topping up a grant from an international charity to address child poverty in this State, while the Government itself, through its futile austerity policies, is increasing child poverty. This is an indisputable fact, as I need only point to the cut to child benefit, which represents the single worst assault in many years on the incomes of families with children and which hits low to middle-income families worst of all. Moreover, this was in the wake of the children’s referendum. While a total of €2.5 million is going to a handful of areas to address child poverty, in budget 2013 a full-year cut of €142 million was made to child benefit and Members should stop to think about the contrast between these two figures. This was a reduction in child benefit, which is the most direct and beneficial payment to families and children in poverty or in danger of poverty. This is what child benefit has been and has meant to so many struggling families, both in present times and in years past. I have no doubt that this single cut has pushed many more families into poverty.

Although the Minister’s Department is not directly responsible for that particular cut, she is part of the Government that imposed it and that cut, regrettably, together with all the other cuts affecting families and children, is undermining the positive work, which I unhesitatingly acknowledge, and the future plans of her Department, including the plans for the child and family agency. While the explanatory memorandum states that the new agency on its establishment will assume responsibility for child welfare and protection, including the services relating to the psychological welfare of children and must consult with children and “hear and take into account” the child’s views in certain matters, it does not require that the new agency listen to and take into account the views of children in all matters pertaining to their lives and welfare. This is something I had understood to have been established clearly, certainly in the spirit if not the letter on foot of the children's referendum. I believe the Minister should strengthen the commitment in this legislation on Committee Stage.

The new child and family agency was of course initially intended to be called the child and family support agency. I have raised the matter of the dropping of the word "support" from the title of the new body previously but the Minister has not adequately replied to my questions as to the reason the word "support" has been dropped. I am in no way assured there is not an ulterior reason for so doing. In replying to Second Stage contributions, will the Minister care to expand on whatever she already has said on this matter? The Family Support Agency has heretofore been a key player in addressing and providing for the address of a range of challenges that present in the lives of families and whole communities. It had a board that included representation from the Family Resource Centre National Forum and again, despite repeated questioning by this Deputy, the Minister has avoided clarity on the make-up of the interim or transition board and the board of the new child and family agency.

Will the Minister explain the reasons for the disbandment of the Family Support Agency board and why she has not appointed an interim board in the time since then, although she has appointed Ms Norah Gibbons chairperson designate, a welcome appointment? How fewer will its number be, as opposed to the previous Family Support Agency board? Again, will the Family Resource Centre National Forum have direct representation on the new child and family agency board and if not, why not? Whether the Minister is fully aware of it, there is considerable concern among those involved across the network of family resource centres that without that critical representation, their character, ethos and long-established focus will be placed at risk. Surely the access that has served the sector so well heretofore should be maintained. The Family Resource Centre National Forum should have board representation on the new agency.

There is also serious concern regarding current child protection services and the real position relating to social worker numbers. The Minister was at pains over several months last year and earlier this year to assure the House that the promised recruitment had been progressed and, if not complete, was nearly completed. However, we learn from the recently published report, prepared last year by Lynne Peyton and which addressed the child protection services in Roscommon, Waterford and south-east Dublin, that in 96 cases brought to the attention of the HSE child protection services, less than half were adequately addressed. As the report states: "There were many families in which the circumstances for children did not improve despite the involvement of statutory services." It also states that "parental resistance to change and non compliance with child protection plans was not adequately challenged" in a number of cases.

The incredible bottom line is that inclusion on the child protection notification system did not necessarily mean that the child's circumstances had or would improve. Does that position still hold? The report states that this appears to be due to "a lack of understanding of the harsh reality of everyday life for children, the cumulative long-term consequences of neglect, a cultural commitment to keeping families together at all costs and a perceived reticence by the Courts to grant Care Orders in neglect scenarios". In responding to the report's findings, the HSE said there was a need to be alert to the systemic and ongoing impact of neglect. It said that reform of child and family services was ongoing and that it included enhanced governance systems, improved workforce development and the standardisation of practice.

I would never hold the Minister solely responsible in the area of child protection services and for provision in the interests of the rights of children, so how can we collectively address the serious lack of public confidence in our child protection services, which I encounter occasionally, when such reports and such inadequate responses are the order of the day? This is not a historical matter but is more contemporary than we would wish. Surely the child protection services in transition and under the oversight of the designated chief executive of the new child and family agency would, on foot of all that has been revealed in a succession of reports and exposés over recent years, be advanced to a better and more fit for purpose status. It is understandable that, sadly, some have concluded.that nothing has changed and little will change in reality. I hope that will not be the case.

Despite the fact that I am supportive of the establishment of the new agency and remain supportive of the Minister's programme of work, which I acknowledge and for which I admire her, I am hugely concerned that without the necessary funding and resourcing, including the required human resources, the new agency will continue to fail some children, families and communities. Without the required funding and staffing provision, the new agency will fail to meet the Minister's hopes and my hopes for it and will fail the many who really need it to be a success.

I will support the passing of the Bill and I will address some aspects of it on Committee and Report Stages. I invite the Minister also to give it her further consideration to ensure what we finally arrive at, when we will hopefully see its successful passage through this House, will indeed be everything we would wish.

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