Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The publication of the Children First Bill represents delivery of a key aim of the programme for Government, as well as the delivery of a key recommendation of the 2009 Ryan report implementation plan. The Bill will form part of a suite of child protection legislation which already includes the Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Offences against Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012 and the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012. This proposed new law represents an important and necessary addition to the child welfare and protection landscape, seeking as it does to ensure that child protection concerns are brought to the attention of the Child and Family Agency without delay. This is about ending the turning of a blind eye to child abuse and neglect which prevailed for far too long. This legislation is about making best safeguarding practice the cultural norm for anyone working with children.

The Bill provides for several key child protection measures. It requires mandated persons to report child protection concerns to the Child and Family Agency, Tusla. Mandated persons includes medical practitioners, registered nurses, teachers, social workers, gardaí, psychologists, members of the clergy, preschool child care staff, child protection officers of religious, sporting, cultural or recreational organisations offering services to children. The Bill also sees the establishment of a Children First interdepartmental implementation group on a legislative basis whose purpose will be to promote compliance and monitor implementation by various Departments. This group, which includes representation from each Department, will be required to keep the implementation of the legislation under review and to report every year to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. This will ensure a continuous focus on implementation and compliance until best practice becomes the norm.

The Bill states that information on harm to children must be reported. Harm means to assault, ill- treat, neglect or sexually abuse a child, whether caused by a single act, omission or circumstance or a series or combination of acts, omissions or circumstances or otherwise. Ill-treatment means to abandon or cruelly treat a child, or to cause or procure or allow the child to be abandoned or cruelly treated, in a manner that seriously affects or is likely to seriously affect the child’s health, development or welfare. Neglect means to deprive a child of adequate food, warmth, clothing, hygiene, supervision, safety or medical care in a manner that seriously affects or is likely to seriously affect the child’s health, development or welfare. Sexual abuse means rape, sexual assault, incest by males or females, sexual offences, wilful exposure of the child to pornography, or wilful sexual activity in the presence of the child, or human trafficking, or causing or encouraging sexual offences upon a child.

Welfare, in relation to a child, includes the moral, intellectual, physical, emotional and social welfare of the child. The Child and Family Agency has reorganised its Children First services into a new national service, with local Children First information officers now working as part of a national team reporting to a national manager. Work is under way to develop the agency information campaign, including via websites and social media. Work is also under way to develop a training framework to support implementation of the Children First Bill. For example, the agency has already engaged with city and county child care committees on training of trainers, which means staff in each city and county child care committee have now been trained to provide training to individual child care settings, with full national cover now in place.

I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, on her outstanding work to date. I commend the Bill to the House.

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