Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on Second Stage of the Children First Bill.

The Bill aims to make further and better provision for the protection of children and places the Children First guidelines on a statutory footing 11 years after they were published. It provides for an obligation to make reports to the Child and Family Agency on children in certain circumstances. It requires certain persons to assist the agency and organisations working with children to carry out risk assessments to identify potential sources of harm to children under their care and prepare child safeguarding statements. It also provides for the establishment of the Children First interdepartmental implementation group and the preparation of sectoral implementation plans by Departments. It places an obligation on two groups, the first of which is mandated persons designated within their organisations and professionals who have an obligation to make a report to the Child and Family Agency if they suspect children are at risk of abuse, neglect or harm. Second, it places an obligation on service providers to carry out harm risk assessments and draw up child safeguarding plans. This is a very welcome aspect of the Bill and shows that it has a serious intent that must be worked on into the future.

The legislation has been broadly welcomed across the House. It is welcome to have the Children First guidelines placed on a legislative footing. It had been indicated by the Minister for a number of years that this would happen. The Bill has been welcomed by almost all groups working with children. The broad based Saving Childhood group has welcomed, in particular, that the best interests of children are of paramount consideration, the requirement on organisations to provide child safeguarding statements and the establishment of the Children First interdepartmental implementation group. The establishment of the implementation group is a welcome development because it is vitally important that the legislation be reviewed on an ongoing basis. I have often commented in the House that a good deal of legislation brought before the House does not have a review mechanism built into it. Some items of legislation provide that a review must take place five years after its enactment. All legislation should have that ongoing review mechanism built into it. The Bill has a wide-ranging remit across a number of Departments, including the Departments of Education and Skills and Health, as well as the Child and Family Agency, and a review must take place at all times to ensure it is achieving what it has set out to achieve in putting the Children First guidelines on a legislative footing.

The one flaw in the legislation which has probably been highlighted previously is the lack of sanctions for persons or organisations that fail to report. The reason given is a concern that there could be a rush of allegations, complaints or reports to the Child and Family Agency that would clog up the entire system and prevent it from investigating what is happening with reports. The Children First guidelines have been in place for 11 years and the figures from the Health Service Executive, the most recent of which are the for the period up to 2011, show that between 2007 and 2011 there was a 36% increase in the number of reports under the legislation, rising to 31,000 reports. This shows that in the time the guidelines have been in place momentum has built in organisations recognising their responsibilities under them. We may have passed the point where a raft of reports will come forward to the agency that will have to be investigated.

The lack of a sanction is a real flaw in the legislation. I would not like to see it used, but a commitment and a responsibility should be included in the legislation to ensure ten or 15 years on from the introduction of the legislation organisations will not take their eye off the ball in that regard. That is the reason sanctions are important and I ask the Minister to consider providing for some form of sanction. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Bill passed Committee Stage yesterday, but I am concerned about the lack of a sanction for public bodies that have a positive duty to examine human rights and gauge their policies against their human rights commitments. That is a worrying trend we may see in other legislation that does not include sanctions because it lessens the obligation on organisations to ensure they comply with their requirements. We never want to see it being used, but such a provision should be included in the legislation to allow the Minister or the responsible body to act against organisations that do not report, as they are obliged to do. The lack of a sanction may be a sop to the clergy or the Catholic Church in terms of their obligations to report, a major concern raised in the past year by priests in terms of what is said in the confessional. I imagine it would be virtually impossible to secure a conviction against any member of the clergy who receives an allegation in the confessional. The issue would never arise, but there are organisations that did not have a culture of reporting abuse or dealing effectively with abuse and not providing for a sanction in the legislation lets them off the hook.

Putting the Children First guidelines on a statutory footing is very welcome, but, as has been mentioned by other Members and as the Minister is aware, there is a difficulty for the Child and Family Agency in investigating reports it receives. That is a major concern that must be examined on an ongoing basis. The Irish Association of Social Workers has stated there are not enough social workers employed across the country to ensure they can investigate reports adequately. An interesting quote from Ms Helen Buckley, Associate Professor at the School of Social Work and Social Policy in Trinity College Dublin, is worth reading. She states:

There is a common assumption that the harm and misery experienced by some of the children who featured in recent high profile cases was a result of failure to report. This is in fact a misperception. The majority of recent high profile cases had been reported many times to HSE social work departments. The problems exposed in these cases occurred during the ensuing months and years when the children and families were known to a number of services.

That is very telling and places a huge obligation on the Government to ensure the volume of complaints and reports received by the Child and Family Agency is dealt with in a timely fashion. We do not want to see a repeat of some of the harrowing cases exposed in recent years when families were not dealt with, even though they were known to all agencies. That is a bigger objective to achieve, but it is something we should work towards to ensure we achieve it. It will mean the securing of resources for the Child and Family Agency and social workers to ensure investigations are completed and dealt with from start to finish to protect children across the State. I know the Minister is committed to this, developing social work services and the recruitment of social workers. As circumstances start to improve, I hope the Government will be committed to doing this also and that it will provide the resources required to ensure full enforcement of the legislation.

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