Dáil debates

Thursday, 29 April 2010

Child Welfare and Protection Services: Statements

 

Photo of Barry AndrewsBarry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the opportunity provided by this debate to reflect on the important issue of child welfare and protection services and to discuss ongoing developments in this complex and sensitive area.

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I am sorry to interrupt the Minister of State but the House might come to order for these important statements.

Photo of Seán BarrettSeán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I apologise.

Photo of Barry AndrewsBarry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The provision of appropriate robust and responsive child welfare and protection services remains a key priority for both myself, as Minister of State with responsibility for children and youth affairs, and the Government. The provision of these services is every bit as crucial as the delivery of critical care services and should be afforded that same priority in Health Service Executive, HSE, thinking and planning. Since children in need of the HSE's services are rarely in a position to advocate for themselves or demand better services, they have not in the past received the attention they deserve.

The past several months have seen much adverse reports on various aspects of those services provided to the most vulnerable members of society. Many of the issues are down to legacy and, on reflection, it can often seem as if the responses to the stories of abuse and neglect highlight only deficiencies and inadequacies in services.

There is a wide range of ongoing developments which I believe are improving the delivery of services and will ultimately result in better outcomes for children. The challenges should not be underestimated. There are few quick fixes and we must be honest about the job at hand. Child protection has rightly jumped up the health, political and media agenda and is closely scrutinised, a welcome catalyst for change. Further reports focusing on child protection will be the subject of parliamentary, public and media attention in the coming months. This will ensure the spotlight remains focused on the provision of children's services.

As a society, however, we must share in our responsibility of each and every individual playing their part in protecting our children from harm. However, when a member of the public, a teacher or a general practitioner reports an allegation of abuse, be it physical, sexual, emotional or neglect, it must be dealt with in a timely and professional manner.

At present, there are approximately 5,700 children in the care of the State. Between relative and general foster care, in excess of 5,100 children are accommodated. This reflects the Government's commitment to ensuring that children are placed in a stable and caring family environment, allowing them to develop close bonds that nurture their emotional and physical needs. Since 2003, funding for family support services has increased by 80%, with foster care funding up by 34% and residential care funding up by 7%. The smaller increase in residential care reflects the positive steps taken to prioritise foster care placements over residential care.

The Health Service Executive budget for 2010 for children and families is €536 million. This covers a wide range of services which include family support services, child protection services, youth homelessness, registration and inspection of children's residential centres in the voluntary sector and monitoring of children's residential centres in the voluntary and statutory sectors. An additional €15 million has been made available by Government in 2010 to fund the actions specified in the Ryan commission implementation plan, to which I will refer shortly.

There are many important steps being taken to drive reform in HSE service delivery. A welcome and positive development was the appointment some months ago of an assistant national director with responsibility for children and family services. I was adamant that this dedicated post was required to allow the HSE place a strong emphasis on the area in terms of delivery. Reform is needed, and the organisation is responding to the need for a unified vision and standardised practices. To build confidence among the families using these services and health professionals, these initiatives need to be rolled out nationally. I personally chair regular meetings with the assistant national director and his team to monitor all actions for the improvement of child welfare and protection services. The allocation and reallocation of resources or re-assignment of priorities can present industrial relations and other infrastructural difficulties, which must be dealt with sensitively.

As Members will be aware, last year the Government accepted in full the recommendations of the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, which revealed very harrowing details of abuses perpetrated on children who had been placed by the State in residential institutions run by religious orders. In so doing, the Government made clear its intention to respond to each of the commission's recommendations. To this end, I was asked by the Taoiseach, Deputy Brian Cowen, to prepare an implementation plan drawing on experience from all relevant Departments and public bodies. I believe that in commissioning such a plan the Government clearly demonstrated its commitment to both the survivors of institutional care and to vulnerable children of today.

The plan, published in July last year, reflects in my view a comprehensive response to Mr. Justice Ryan's recommendations. In drawing up the plan, I consulted with survivor groups both here in Ireland and in the United Kingdom, all relevant Departments, children's advocacy groups and agencies involved in the delivery of services to at risk children including staff representative groups. The submissions I received were detailed and substantive. I am determined that children in care today and other vulnerable children will be protected from neglect and abuse with all of the resolve of the State.

The implementation plan contains a total of 99 action points to address each of the commission's 20 recommendations. I am chairing a high level group to monitor the implementation of the actions specified in this plan. The group includes representatives from my office, the HSE, the Health Information and Quality Authority, the Irish Youth Justice Service, the Department of Education and Science and the Garda Síochána. The group will meet twice a year and a progress report will be presented to Government each year. The first meeting of the monitoring group was held on 13 November 2009. The lifetime of the group will be a minimum of four years.

Child welfare and protection policy in Ireland has come a long way since the period covered by the commission. Since the time described in the report we have taken significant steps forward in terms of policy and legislative provision. Major pieces of legislation, such as the Child Care Act 1991 and the Children Act 2001, have been passed. Key policy initiatives such as the Children First national guidelines, the National Children's Strategy, the Agenda for Children's Services and the Irish Youth Justice Service Strategy have come into force. What the implementation plan sets out, however, is that despite this strong legislative and policy framework, service delivery for children in need and children at risk is not sufficiently co-ordinated, unevenly distributed nationally and must be addressed. While considerable improvements remain to be made in our services, I believe there is a commitment, on behalf of policy makers and practitioners, to see positive change.

One of the commitments of the Ryan implementation plan is to ensure all children in care have an allocated social worker and care plan. To this end there is a commitment to filling 270 HSE social worker posts, which are currently vacant, by the end of this year. The HSE Service Plan 2010 undertakes to recruit an additional 200 social workers for child protection services - 50 by the end of the second quarter, a further 75 by the end of the third quarter and the final 75 in the fourth quarter. I understand from the HSE that the first candidates have now been interviewed and that by end June they expect to have an additional 50 social workers recruited. I also note that the HSE, as recently as last week, placed further recruitment advertisements, with a salary scale ranging from €43,000 to €56,000. This is against a backdrop of cuts in most other areas of public expenditure.

I have previously placed on the record of this House my appreciation for the work carried out by social work teams. I firmly believe that social workers, in dealing with difficult child protection cases, must be supported and guided by HSE management. I am sure that any person who has followed any recent child welfare cases through the courts appreciates the often very trying circumstances in which social workers operate.

Revised Children First guidelines were published on the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, OMCYA, website in December 2009, in line with a commitment of the Ryan implementation plan. We intend shortly to print the guidelines and to undertake a wide ranging dissemination exercise. In addition to that, legislation is to be drafted to provide a duty to comply with Children First for all bodies in receipt of State funding. I recognise that there is a need for Children First to be uniformly implemented throughout the State.

The substance and principles of Children First are unchanged. The guidelines have been edited to provide greater clarity for those individuals and organisations looking for assistance in identifying and responding appropriately to child abuse. In this context, much of the background text has been removed or placed as an appendix to make the guidelines more user-friendly. Content has been updated where required to reflect new agencies, such as the HSE and the HIQA, and progress in service delivery, policy or in legislation since 1999.

An implementation framework is being developed to include independent inspection of compliance. It is also intended that a high level interdepartmental Children First group will be established to be chaired and serviced by the OMCYA. Subject to finalisation, the group is to have representatives from key Departments, namely, the Departments of Education and Skills, Justice and Law Reform, Tourism, Culture and Sport and Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs. The group will be tasked with overall oversight of national implementation of the guidelines across the various sectors and any policy issues arising, and it will report to myself.

It is important to note that Children First, although not on a statutory basis, still brings with it very clear responsibilities for those who become aware of child protection issues and those responsibilities are those we would reasonably expect everyone in society to live up to in caring for children.

I recently established an independent review group on child deaths, comprising Ms Norah Gibbons of Barnardos and Mr. Geoffrey Shannon, child law specialist and recently re-appointed as the Government's special rapporteur on child protection. A third independent person of international standing will be appointed to the group following a consultation process. The group is being asked to examine existing information on deaths of children in care so as to validate the categorisation of those children who died from natural causes; and, in regard to children other than those who died from natural causes, examine existing reviews-reports completed by the HSE or by others on behalf of the HSE, or the health boards, and based upon that information, provide an overall report for publication. I have recently written to the chairman of the HSE asking him to validate the list of relevant cases, and the group has commenced its work. I am awaiting a response from the chairman of the HSE on the issue of validation but will not be surprised if the number arrived at is higher than the figures previously notified by the HSE.

In the context of the publication of the reports into the deaths of Young Person A and Young Person B, I said it was unacceptable that the HSE did not have a standard system to manage the investigation and publication of reports into children who died in the care of the State. Thankfully, HIQA has now provided guidance for the HSE on serious incidents, including deaths of children in care. The independent group will present its report to me and I will lay the report before the Houses of the Oireachtas and publish it. Deaths of children in care is a highly sensitive subject, and I am determined to take on board any recommendations from the group as to how responses can be strengthened while remaining sensitive to a wide range of other needs. I fully accept the need for independence in this process, and note the comments of Mr. Shannon in his rapporteur's report in this regard.

In 2007, Mr. Shannon was appointed as special rapporteur on child protection. In the three year period since then his reports have informed policy and provided an objective and independent expert view of the child protection system - both criminal and civil - in Ireland. His third report was recently accepted by Government and published. On the subject of mandatory reporting, the position adopted by Mr. Shannon in his report reflects that of my office, namely, that mandatory reporting serves only to swamp child protection systems with high volumes of reports, often resulting in no commensurate increase in substantiated cases. I also accept the need identified by Mr. Shannon for all care facilities to receive independent and thorough inspections. My office is currently developing new regulations under the Health Act 2007 to allow for independent inspection of all children's residential centres and foster care services and to allow the independent registration and inspection of all residential centres and respite services for children with a disability, both committed to under the Ryan implementation plan.

I am very pleased that Mr. Shannon has agreed to continue to act as special rapporteur for a further period of three years. Following a re-engagement with the Church authorities in January 2009 and discussions involving the Church, the HSE and the OMCYA, a revised audit questionnaire was issued by the HSE in July 2009 to Catholic dioceses. In December 2009, the HSE wrote to all bishops requesting additional detailed information, including names of complainants, the persons against whom the complaint was made, and information in regard to reporting to the HSE-health boards and the Garda Síochána. The HSE received the last of the names of complainants and accused at the end of February and is now in the process of cross-referencing all names with files held by the Garda Síochána.

The HSE has a dedicated team working on preparation of its audit report and has engaged the services of an independent consultant to ensure that the process is conducted to the highest international standard. It hopes to have the report in regard to the dioceses completed in the near future. On the audit of the Religious Orders, the HSE is analysing returns from approximately 140 Orders and provides updates on progress to my office on an ongoing basis. As I stated previously in the Dáil, the Government is determined to ensure the Catholic Church is reporting current allegations of sexual abuse to the Health Service Executive and the Garda Síochána.

In February 2010, the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children produced its third and final report on family law matters of the Twenty Eighth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2007, including an alternative wording for that amendment. The report deals with the rights of children under the Constitution and the statute and case law concerning adoption, guardianship, care proceedings, custody and access to children. I welcomed publication of the committee's final report, the contents of which are now under consideration by the Government. A senior officials group, reporting to the Cabinet sub-committee on Social Inclusion, has been reconvened to co-ordinate the responses of each Department.

It is recognised good practice and policy to where possible place children with extended family members. It is, therefore, a very positive development that of the children placed by the HSE with foster carers approximately one-third are placed with relative carers. While I recognise this is an important development for the benefit of children I am aware of the challenges also facing us in this area.

I acknowledge that in a situation where a child has been placed with a relative on an emergency basis, there is evidence that full assessments of those families have not occurred following an initial assessment. This is an unacceptable situation which the HSE must work to remedy as soon as possible. Another area of concern is the fact that approximately 84% of children in foster care with relatives and non-relatives have an allocated social worker. Again, it is not acceptable that 16% or approximately 815 children in foster care do not have an allocated social worker.

The many actions set out in the Ryan Implementation Plan were developed to assist me as Minister of State with responsibility for children and the HSE in resolving these problems and to ensure that all children in care receive the same level of appropriate and safe care whether with relatives or non-relatives. Integral to the workings of my office is its cross-departmental function and its endeavours to approach service delivery issues in a joined-up manner. Through strong contacts established with the HSE, the Garda Síochána, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and other Departments, State agencies and NGOs, I have experienced first-hand the shared emphasis on improving children's lives in this country. Examples of this include the joint HSE-Garda protocol on emergency out of hours placements, the preparation of legislation in conjunction with the Department of Justice and Law Reform, the high level inter-departmental Children First group referred to earlier and the consultative group that produced guidance in regard to the guardiansad litem. Contacts with all the aforementioned continue on a regular basis.

I once again reiterate the Government's commitment to address the crucial challenge of protecting the most vulnerable members of our society. When children are failed for whatever reason, they must be protected by society and the State must take on this role. As every parent knows, this is a complex and difficult task requiring ongoing commitment, imagination and hard work.

Photo of Alan ShatterAlan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I listened with interest to the Minister of State's speech. I do not believe that within the limited time available to me I will have an opportunity to address each of the topics raised by the him but will try to cover a number of them which are of considerable importance.

The first issue I wish to address is the holding of a children's rights referendum. It is now nine or ten weeks since the committee chaired by Deputy O'Rourke, of which I was privileged to be a member, published its report. I find extraordinary that not a single Cabinet Minister has yet gone on record agreeing with the proposed constitutional amendment and that the Government has not confirmed a date for the holding of a referendum.

In the context of all of the scandals and disasters surrounding our child care services, it is not good enough to speak about prioritising children and children's rights and needs. We are drowning in a plethora of reports and good intentions. What we need is Government commitment. I call on the Government to state exactly where it stands in regard to the holding of this referendum, which should be held in 2010. Is the wording, worked through over two years on a cross-party basis in a committee attended by the Minister of State, his predecessor and Minister and Ministers of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, accepted? If a referendum is to be held the work undertaken in good faith by members of that committee needs to be explained to the public. The reason for change needs to be understood. The benefits of change, in the public interest and interests of children, need to be clearly understood by those who will vote in a referendum.

Essentially what has happened is that the report has been published and so far buried by Government, with no commitment given. I am disappointed that the Minister of State yet again, in terms of the holding of the referendum and on the wording of an amendment, kicked to touch and simply genuflected in its direction and told us it is being considered by an internal Government committee. I do not believe this is good enough or that this matter is receiving the priority required to ensure we finally extend to children the constitutional protection to which they are entitled and to remove some of the discriminations inherent in our current law with regard to children as a consequence of revisions in our Constitution.

I listened to what the Minister of State had to say about our child care and protection services. I am conscious that he has been in his current position - he may correct me on this if I am wrong - for approximately two years and that he inherited the mess left by his predecessors and the failure of Fianna Fáil in Government over a decade to truly prioritise the needs of children and to ensure we had a proper functioning child care and protection service. The Minister of State referred to the HSE and legacy issues. The word "legacy" is a nice neat technical word for describing neglect and utter failure over a decade to put in place systems, procedures and structures that ensured the Children First child protection guidelines of 1999 were properly applied.

It is interesting to note a quote, included in the report by Geoffrey Shannon which the Government has accepted, by former Minister of State with special responsibility for children, Deputy Frank Fahey, on the occasion of the publication by the Department of Health and Children of the Child Protection Guidelines 1999 which states that the guidelines were to be applied consistently by health boards, Departments and organisations which provide services to children and that they were to support and guide health professionals, teachers, members of the Garda Síochána and the many people in sporting, cultural, community and voluntary organisations who come into regular contact with children and are therefore in a position of responsibility in recognising and responding to possible child abuse. This was at a time when it was the health boards who administered our child care and protection services.

We then enacted the Health Act 2004 which put in place the HSE. During the Second Stage debate on that Bill on 23 November 2004, the then and current Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, stated:

This is a once in a generation event. It is our chance to put in place modern effective management to make the best use of these tremendous resources we applying to health and to get clear value and clear results for that money. To achieve this, we badly needed clarity of roles and accountability, political responsibility for the Minister and management responsibility for the management.

Where are we today? We have a dysfunctional, chaotic child care and protection service, grossly mismanaged with a plethora of reports, one commissioned by the Minister of State's office, acknowledging that at no stage have the Children First, child care and protection guidelines been uniformly or properly applied across the country.

The Minister of State has acknowledged that in December 2009 he published a revised form of the child protection guidelines, which appeared quietly on a website. I find it extraordinary, in the context of the recognition that there was a need to revise the guidelines because of the failure of the HSE to properly apply them and the need to bring them up to date because of developments that occurred in the context of the creation of other agencies in the intervening period, that the Minister would come into this House on the last week in April, more than four months since they were put on his website, and inform us that they would be published and that finally something would be done to ensure the professionals working on the frontline with children are aware of the detail of the new child protection guidelines. How is that prioritising children and ensuring they are given the protection to which they are entitled?

I find especially questionable the ongoing, obsessive secrecy with regard to our child care and protection services. When a family, individual child or children are in trouble or difficulty and require support, of course their names should be kept confidential and they should have available assistance and services in a manner that does not produce widespread newspaper reports. However, we must have a service that is accountable and transparent. The Minister of State acknowledges that the reports published into the tragic deaths of Tracy Fay and David Foley are grossly inadequate in the context of accountability and other issues. The Minister of State was powerless to ensure appropriate reports were published.

I do not know in what parallel universe this is taking place, whether it is the fault of the Minister of State or the HSE. The HSE was able to publish a report into the death of Tracy Fay and appeared to operate in a universe as if the full report had never been laid before this House. Even more deplorable, the true story of what happened in the tragic life of Tracy Fay has been told but the true story of what happened to David Foley has been covered up. That is not about protecting his dignity or protecting confidentiality of family members. There is an over-riding obsession within the HSE to protect the reputation of those who have not properly delivered the service expected in accordance with their statutory duties and employment responsibilities. The failure to publish relates more to protecting those who have failed to do their jobs properly within the HSE, especially at management level, and who too frequently and tragically ignored recommendations made by hard-pressed, frontline social workers, who feared for the future of these two young people and who have feared for the future of other young people.

I put it to the Minster of State that we must bring accountability and transparency to the process. I am disappointed that in his speech today, the Minister of State omitted any reference of any description to a very important report. It is especially important in the context of the monitoring committee the Minister of State has declared established. I do not know whether the Minister of State has had sight of this report, whether it is yet another bloc of information the HSE has failed to furnish to him or whether this report has been deliberately covered up because it is yet another devastating indictment of child care and protection services, their structure and management and because it contains substantial recommendations for reform, which the HSE has no wish to make public for fear its capacity to implement such recommendations would be monitored and those involved would be held accountable. Perhaps this is the case and I am willing to give the Minister of State the benefit of the doubt in this regard. Perhaps he knows nothing of this report and he should be informed. However, if he is aware of this report the issue of accountability attaches to the Minister of State as well.

The report to which I refer was commissioned by the HSE, prepared by the PA Consulting group and furnished to the HSE in October 2009. The report which I am laying before the House today, because I believe it should be in the public domain, is entitled Inspiring Confidence in Children and Family Services: Putting Children First and Meaning It. That would represent a change. This report, commissioned by the HSE and furnished to it last October has not been widely circulated. It has never been published and we do not know what has been done on foot of it to implement the recommendations contained in it. We do not know if anyone was monitoring it. We do not know what recommendations have been accepted or rejected. We do not even know whether the Minister of State has seen this report.

I call on the Minister of State to inform the House in his reply today whether he has seen it. If he has seen it, why was it not referred to today in his statement to the House? I also wish to know why Geoffrey Shannon, a person of integrity and decency who has been re-appointed by the Government the child protection rapporteur, was not furnished with this report before he completed his report for 2009, the recommendations of which the Minister of State maintains the Government accepted. Geoffrey Shannon's report was only laid before the House and made publically available on 21 April.

One recommendation on page 68 in Geoffrey Shannon's report calls for an independent, national review of the current child protection system to be carried out. It recommends that review should involve examination of child protection data, international practice and consultations with stakeholders to identify the primary child protection concerns and areas in need of reform. This was published in April 2010 by the Minister of State. Interestingly, when the Minister of State informed us in his statement today that the recommendations made by Geoffrey Shannon had been accepted, he did not state that particular recommendation had been accepted. That recommendation, presumably made at the end of 2009 and published in April 2010, is interesting because it seems it had already been implemented by the HSE before it was made in the report. That is because of the job done by PA Consulting for the HSE, at a cost to the State of I do not know how much.

It is also interesting that some of the criticisms the report makes of the child care and protection service simply replicate what was contained in the review published by the Minister of State's Department, which was paid for by taxpayers at the end of July in 2008. However, this dates from October 2009. This report concludes that the structure and model of child care service is grossly inadequate and essentially incapable of providing proper protection for children.

The report emphasises something I have maintained for some time, something I believe is a disgrace and a scandal, that is, our child care and protection services are not child-centred. Essentially, the primary concern is the delivery system and structure of the HSE. I refer to the report, which states, "the needs of children are secondary to the needs of the delivery system".

Why was no reference made to this report? There is a need to let in the light if we are to have a truly functioning, accountable child care and protection service that can be monitored and which we can determine whether approvals have been made and whether defects are being addressed. Such reports as this should be in the public domain and it is extraordinary that this report is not in the public domain.

This attitude to the issue is not only within the HSE but within Government as well. On Tuesday this week, I tabled a question to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform calling on him to publish the protocol that exists between the HSE and the Garda Síochána to deal with missing children. The response was to refuse to publish it or furnish it to me on the basis that it was an operational matter between the Garda Síochána and the HSE. This is a protocol not even widely known among social workers related to what to do when a child in care goes missing. I refer to the websites of the children's authorities throughout England. There are similar protocols on such websites outlining the relationship between the police in England and the local authorities responsible for child welfare. It is extraordinary that the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Minister took the view this was something that should not be published. I believe the protocol should be available as well. That protocol has been received by me, although not through the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The report to which I have referred and the protocol are both publicly available on a Fine Gael website, www.letinthelight.ie. I assure the Minister of State that we will continue to do everything possible to campaign to ensure we have an accountable and properly transparent child care and protection service, within which the huge gaps and deficiencies are properly and adequately addressed.

The manner in which the HSE released truncated reports, purporting to summarise the tragedies that occurred in the lives of Tracey Fay and David Foley, to the media at 3 p.m. or 3.30 p.m. last Friday evening is a classic example of everything that is wrong with our child care and protection services. The truncated reports detailed the recommendations that were made and the pretence that was the HSE's response to these recommendations. The HSE published a statement on its website suggesting that everything is fine now that all of the issues have been addressed. In its response, the HSE failed to make any reference to the huge deficiencies that were detailed in a document last October. We do not know of any timeline for remedying those deficiencies. I appreciate that since this document was published, Mr. Phil Garland has been appointed as national director of children's services. I am not naive enough to believe that as a result of his appointment, everything is rosy in the garden, as presented by the HSE to the media late on Friday evening. The HSE hoped the reports it published last Friday would receive little notice and little publicity.

I am aware that for a long time, no one was able to identify who was in charge of the child care and protection services. We need a statutory change. The Minister of State or his successor should be put in charge. When I heard that Mr. Garland had been appointed, I welcomed it because I was familiar with his reputation. However, when I observed the manner in which these issues were dealt with last Friday, heard the public comments he made after Fine Gael published the report into the tragic death of Tracey Fay and noted his silence about this report, I started to fear that his good intentions were being overwhelmed by the appalling ethos that applies within the HSE, which involves keeping one's head down, saying nothing, keeping everything confidential, not letting in the light and ensuring nobody is ever held accountable for anything that goes wrong. I want the priority within the system, which is to preserve the system rather than to protect children, to be changed.

Photo of Joe CostelloJoe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
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I would like to share time with Deputy Tuffy.

Photo of Michael KittMichael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Is that agreed? Agreed.

Photo of Joe CostelloJoe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
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I am pleased to have an opportunity to discuss the development of child welfare and protection services. As Deputy Shatter has said, no proper model of child care services exists at present. The structure that is in place is grossly inadequate, seriously flawed and very secretive. Nobody knows what is going on. This is particularly sad given that we are talking about this country's children. We are supposed to cherish the children of the nation but, since the foundation of the State, that has not been the case. The opposite has happened over the decades. It is a sad reflection on the manner in which we have done our business at all levels. The pillars of society - the church and the State - have been found seriously wanting in this regard. Not only have they been negligent, but in many cases they have colluded in the mistreatment and mismanagement of the children of this country.

It is incredible to think that this most vulnerable of all areas enjoys the least legislative or constitutional protection. Eighty years or more after the foundation of the State, it is not good enough that there is no constitutional framework, outside a passing reference to their parents, to protect children or to consider their welfare. We have yet to arrange a referendum on a constitutional amendment that would provide a constitutional framework in this area for once and for all. Legislative provisions could then be enacted to develop that framework, in which the children of the country would have the necessary protections in law.

The early discussions we had on the issue of the sexual and physical abuse of children by those who were entrusted with their care focused on the failures of the State authorities, including the Department of Education and Science, and the failures of the clergy in parishes and institutions. Members are familiar with the Ferns report, the Ryan report and last year's Murphy report, each of which revealed an atrocious and horrific litany of abuses. Nobody would imagine that such abuses could happen to adults in a totalitarian regime, but we had such a regime for children, in effect. Innocent children were taken from their homes and imprisoned in institutions for the early formative years of their lives. Their parents trusted the clergy in the Archdiocese of Dublin and other dioceses to look after them, but instead they were abused. Nobody cried halt. None of the institutions of the State said anything. The law enforcement authorities often colluded in these activities. The Garda was not informed in many cases. When it was informed, it seldom took any action.

It is incredible to think that the entire paraphernalia that was built to provide a civilised society in Ireland after the foundation of the State could not find a means of putting proper monitoring and supervising mechanisms in place. This did not just happen once or twice - it happened decade after decade between the 1930s and the 1980s. We are still coming to terms with the extent of what was going on. Some of those who were involved continue to hold various positions. The leadership of the church, in particular, was diabolical. Leadership was only shown in order to effect a cover-up, protect the church, avoid scandal and ensure the reputation of the church was not tainted. At the same time, the church was being destroyed internally by excesses of the clergy, including those in positions of authority. One has to ask how it could have happened. It did happen. There was nobody to prevent it from happening.

I would like to speak about the importance of the findings of the two reports, the most recent of which was the Murphy report on the huge Archdiocese of Dublin. The findings, which were based on a representative sample of 47 priests, were atrocious. The Ryan report on the residential institutions and industrial schools also painted a very grim picture. I often come across cases of this kind in my constituency of Dublin Central. Over the years, many of those who ended up in St. Patrick's juvenile institution or Mountjoy Prison, in particular, had long legacies of incarceration as children in industrial and reformatory schools throughout the country. As long ago as 1979, I conducted a survey of 200 prisoners and found that 80% of them had been to reformatory or industrial schools. It was just atrocious. However, there was no real interest in dealing with this terrible situation.

It was bewildering to learn that innocent children were abused by clergy in many parishes in my constituency on the north side of Dublin, like other parts of the city. Their lives were taken away and they were traumatised. This happened in the parishes, as distinct from the wholescale State institutionalisation which took place in working class areas and poorer areas of the city where the manner in which children were treated was almost like ethnic cleansing. They were taken out of their communities and put into these schools.

It is important that we do not leave it at this. There have now been a number of inquiries. Each one has thrown up greater horrors. Every diocese in the country should have an inquiry. People might say this is too much to do but it has to be done. What we have seen, where inquiries have taken place, clearly reveals that there was a common practice which was not limited to the narrow geographical boundaries of the dioceses of Ferns and Dublin or to the institutions or reformatory schools. Clearly, it was wider. The other reason for doing that is because so many of the priests were moved around within dioceses and to other dioceses. In order to clear the air and to ensure we can build on the past and move into the future, we must do that.

A number of other things need to be done. The Murphy commission found that the legislation governing the role of the HSE in dealing with child sexual abuse was limited and inadequate, and that the Government should introduce measures to correct that defect. I asked the Tánaiste on the Order of Business whether any measures were in train and she knew nothing about it, so I presume there are none.

I would like to know if there has been any progress in the Garda inquiry which was instituted last July and whether any files have been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The European Union established a hotline for missing children, 116000-EU, in 2007 which is working in 11 member states. I asked the Tánaiste about it on the Order of Business and she knew nothing about it. Why can Ireland not get it? There are hundreds children missing from our care services - we have seen that in recent years - whom nobody knows anything about. We also have a bad track record on human trafficking, including the trafficking of children. That is an urgent matter which should be dealt with.

I wish to refer to adoption. We have made a mess out of it. It is a serious matter which concerned thousands of parents in this country. We have taken shortcuts and there have been irregularities. The Minister of State instituted an investigation on this matter regarding one particular agency. Many parents have been left in the lurch. It is another area in which we need to get our act together in terms of the protection and welfare of children.

There has been some recent speculation that the churches and religious institutions would get together and make a substantial contribution to the construction of the national paediatric hospital on the Mater site. That would be wholly appropriate. They have caused so much damage to children that it would be symbolic were they to put the assets and funds into providing an institution for the care, attention, welfare and treatment of children.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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When Deputy Higgins spoke on this report in December he said what was important was preventing a scandal rather than addressing the rights of the child. From the reading I have done on the report it seems to have a been a major motivating factor in terms of the people who failed in their obligations. The key issue now is to address the rights of the child. We should have an explicit statement in our constitution. A number of speakers mentioned that in their speeches.

I acknowledge that many progressive steps have been taken over our history on the rights of the child. The 1916 Proclamation spoke about cherishing all the children of the nation equally. The universal children's allowance was introduced in the 1940s. Our education system in general has done well in educating our children over the years. Court cases have often vindicated the rights of the child and have interpreted the Constitution, as it stands, as having rights for the child implicitly within its articles. The Ombudsman for Children was recently established so there has been progress.

On the other hand, there is much in our history which demonstrates that we have treated children as if they were not human beings with the same rights as adults. I was a child in school when corporal punishment was still in place. I experienced it and remember children I knew who were treated very cruelly when corporal punishment was used by people in charge of them in school. Very often it involved people taking out their own problems on vulnerable children, as opposed to chastising the children for anything they had done.

I often wonder why it is acceptable to have primary school children in very derelict buildings but do not have the same standards for buildings for second and third level education. The primary sector, in terms of the school buildings which are in place, is the neglected part of our education system and we need to do something about that.

There is still an element in our society that believes that children should be seen and not heard. What is as dangerous as what was outlined in the Murphy report is that there is still a prevalent view in Irish society that children are the property of their parents. It is time that we took on that view and explicitly stated in our Constitution that children have unique rights and are human beings. We should set out those rights in the Constitution. There is no perfect way to do that but the wording the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children has developed is good. It is progress and I hope the Government makes sure we put that referendum to the people before the end of the year.

On how we respond to the reports, one issue which arises is what we do now in regard to education and its patronage. It is very important that we do not have a knee-jerk reaction. We should not have the idea that there is one model of education, which is very often promoted by a private group, which is somehow purer than another which is promoted by a private group. That was the issue. The church was a private institution that was funded, in terms of education, by the State. The proper accountability and transparency was not in place in the provision of that education.

I acknowledge that a lot of the good came from that educational model. My child attends a very good Catholic school which is as multi-denominational as any other. It caters for many different nationalities and children of many different religions. It is a very progressive school, which is the case for most Catholic schools in the country. We need consultation on what the best model is for education.

The State should provide a national system of education to ensure that every child has the right to education. There should be democratic accountability in terms of how education is provided. When that process is being carried out, we need to involve all of the stakeholders, including the church and those involved in Catholic schools.

The point was made that Catholic schools discriminate against children in their enrolment policies. Other models of schools also discriminate against children. Paul Rowe, chief executive officer of Educate Together, has published a letter in a newspaper today which states it would have a first come, first served enrolment policy in a school in Lucan. The current first come, first served policies can be as discriminatory to children as other enrolment models and that must be recognised.

As we discuss the Ryan and Murphy reports and how we redress the suffering of the victims and so on, it is important that we do not continue to make mistakes in how we vindicate children's rights. Every day we read newspaper reports of court cases relating to the abuse of children or to children in inappropriate exploitative relationships with adults but the Government still has done nothing about the flawed legislation passed in 2006 in response to the Supreme Court judgment that found the 1935 Act unconstitutional. The Government still has not legislated to strengthen our laws to protect young people against predatory adults. It also has not introduced amending legislation to the Child Care Act, flaws in which were also identified by the children's committee to which I referred earlier. It is our role to legislate. There will be huge publicity about the wildlife and dog breeding legislation, yet, four years on, nothing has not been done about a key legislative issue, which is the protection of children's rights.

Photo of Caoimhghín Ó CaoláinCaoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome these statements and the continuing focus of the House on the issue of child welfare and protection. We recently addressed the third and final report of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children and I again call on the Government to table legislation to hold a referendum on the issue of children's rights as a matter of urgency. While anxious that the referendum is proceeded with in the current year, a range of measures and services need to be improved or put in place now in order that children can be properly protected and can have their rights vindicated.

The failures of the past are becoming well documented. Only last week, we had the publication of the HSE's summary reports on the deaths of two teenagers in State care - Tracy Fay, who was 18 years, and David Foley aged 17, both of whom died from drug overdoses. The reports found the HSE had failed adequately to address their care, protection and accommodation needs. They exposed tragic systemic failures. The care of Tracy Fay is described as "wholly inadequate". During her first six months in care, she was accommodated in nine different places. Eight years ago, her body was discovered in a disused coal bunker but official Ireland is only now acknowledging how it failed this child.

The report on David Foley shows that an incredible 32 agencies were in some way responsible for him, although he did not avail of all their services. He was accessing out-of-hour services and hotels for almost two years before he was received into voluntary care. I acknowledge that the Minister of State has apologised for the delay in publishing the reports. However, the reports are inadequate in terms of detail and there is an absence of transparency and accountability. We need the publication in full of all reports on the deaths of children in State care. I urge the Minister of State to note this and to respond at the appropriate time. He stated:

Every exposure of failures in our children's services identified by HIQA, State inquires or the media must lead to action and improvement on the part of Government and statutory agencies. It is the HSE's statutory responsibility to deliver children's services. It is my political responsibility to ensure that appropriate services are delivered.

I do not doubt his sincerity in that commitment; the contrary is my view. We can only hope that he is supported by his Cabinet colleagues and that the political will and the necessary resources will be forthcoming to fulfil the commitment.

The systematic failures that still allow children to be victimised or neglected today need to be addressed. Only last year the Ballydowd centre in west Dublin was closed after a damning report by the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA. The closure raised major concern over child services in this State. The centre was in existence for only nine years and it cost €13 million to put in place, yet it had to be closed because of its unsuitability for the troubled children for whom it catered. The HSE presided over a facility in which, as HIQA stated, there were "not enough staff to run the unit consistently and safely". The HIQA national children in care inspection report, which included the report on Ballydowd, is a severe indictment of State failure to protect children. It highlights "serious deficits in standards aimed at safeguarding vulnerable children, including lapses in vetting procedures for staff and foster carers working with children". These are issues that I, along with others, have repeatedly raised in questions to the Minister for Health and Children and at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children.

I reiterate what I have said on several occasions in this Dáil and in committee. Our child protection services are still woefully inadequate. There are insufficient social workers and other front line workers and support systems. Children are in grave danger but the services are not in place to make the interventions required. The nightmare is happening every day. Most of this abuse takes place in the family home and this cannot be stated often enough. If the services are not put in place then the State will be just as culpable as it was in the past when it conspired with the church to cover up the abuse of children.

The Minister for Health and Children, who has ultimate responsibility, and the Minister of State, who has direct responsibility for children, must act with urgency to bring the care of vulnerable children up to acceptable standard or else we will have more Ryan reports in years to come, only then they will reflect this era. The child protection crisis in this State requires a more concerted and high level approach than that taken by the Government currently. It is regrettable that the Taoiseach did not use the opportunity of the Cabinet reshuffle to appoint a full Minister for children, as I have called for on behalf of Sinn Féin. Others have also reflected that to be their view.

Last week, the Third Report of the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, authored by Geoffrey Shannon, was published. The report was described by the Children's Rights Alliance as "a comprehensive, careful and considered analysis of the child protection landscape in Ireland, which makes a series of important recommendations for reform". Its key recommendations include to establish independent, statutory inquiries to respond to suspected fundamental failings of child care system - such inquiries should be public unless circumstances preclude this; to carry out an independent national review of our current child protection system to identify the primary child protection concerns and areas needing reform, including child deaths; to place Children First: National Guidelines for the Protection and Welfare of Children on a statutory footing; prior to this step, the guidelines should be amended to introduce a differential response model into our child protection system; to establish a committee on child welfare and protection within the office of the Minister for children and youth affairs to oversee inquiries into serious child protection failings; to ensure all care facilities receive independent and thorough inspections, including residential centres for children with intellectual disabilities and for separated children - where necessary, legislation to provide for this must be enacted; to place guidelines for the appointment, role and qualifications of guardians ad litem published by the Children Acts Advisory Board on a statutory footing and establish a regulatory body for guardians ad litem; and to reform our laws and court practice in regard to sexual offences against children. I endorse each of those recommendations and the other recommendations in the report and urge the Minister of State and his colleagues in the Government to set about implementing them.

I wish to highlight now a number of concerns that have been raised with me from within the child care and protection sector. HIQA has produced a set of draft standards for children in care which aim to cover both residential and foster care. Even though many of the same principles apply, these are two different areas of care and require different approaches. It has been represented to me that the new draft standards show a lack of awareness and in-depth understanding of the reality of foster care. That is not surprising given that foster carers have not been properly represented as critically important stakeholders. Foster carers very often see what is being done, or not being done as is too often the case, by the HSE and often have serious concerns and objections about the way matters are decided or managed.

The Childcare (Amendment) Bill 2009 still refers to "detaining" children and young people. It should instead provide for accommodating children and young people in secure accommodation. After-care should be enshrined as a right in legislation, as not all young people who are 18 years old have cognitive and functional abilities commensurate with their chronological age. They fall through a gap in the system, often with the most tragic results. Multi-modal assessments should be available to all children and young people in care, to obviate problems or at least diminish their manifestation.

I reiterate our call for the children's referendum to go ahead. As I have stated previously, the amendment should go some way to addressing some of the legal obstacles affecting the child protection system. If an amendment such as the one contained in the committee's report were enshrined in the Constitution, the State would have sufficient legal power to intervene on behalf of all children at risk, regardless of their parents' marital status.

Some of the wording in the proposed amendment was inspired by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC, which Sinn Féin believes should be the absolute minimum in standards when it comes to children's rights. The principles in the UNCRC have been reiterated in numerous international and national treaties and it is now time this State took a rights-based approach to how children are treated in its laws and policies. While Sinn Féin has been a long-time advocate of enshrining children's rights in the Constitution, we must remember that there are not only legal issues to be resolved in order to enhance the rights of children. If we as Members of the Oireachtas, parents, and as people residing in this State, are to entrust the care of those children whose families can no longer care for them to the State, then the State's care regimes must be accountable and they must be able to fulfil their functions.

The clock is moving on. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, for his attendance and attention this afternoon. I endorse the call of the Children's Rights Alliance on the Minister of State to explain why the next State report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, on its progress in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is now one year late. The Government signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on 30 September 1990 and ratified it on 28 September 1992. By ratifying the UNCRC, the State committed itself to promote, protect and fulfil the rights of children as outlined in the articles of the UNCRC. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, a body of 18 internationally elected independent experts on children's rights, monitors progress towards implementing those rights.

As a state party to the UNCRC this State is required to submit periodic reports describing progress towards implementing the UNCRC in this country. Submissions are also received from non-governmental organisations and independent human rights bodies. This State's report was due to be published a year ago yesterday but has yet to materialise. Does this expose a lack of commitment on the part of the State to the process and to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child itself? I ask the Minister of State to respond at the appropriate time.

It has been pointed out that many of the great strides to vindicate the rights of children in this country in recent years have been made on the back of the UN convention and its robust processes, playing a crucial role, for example, in ensuring the publication of a national children's strategy and the establishment of the office of the Ombudsman for Children. I will conclude with this appeal, this report should be published immediately. If that is not possible, I ask the Minister of State to make a statement explaining why it is not.

Photo of Mary O'RourkeMary O'Rourke (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on children in general. I hope this type of debate will be an ongoing event in Parliament. It is a very good idea. There might not seem to be much interest in the matter but there is, and that interest is only fully realised every time there is a general report on child care or a diocesan report on clerical sex abuse when there is much exclamation and debate. It is important that we have such debates on an ongoing basis.

I very much welcome many of the matters to which the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, referred. I will return to those in a moment. Given that each speaker mentioned the referendum on the rights of the child it would be wrong of me not to so do. I have already expressed my views clearly in another forum which was extensively reported. I understand the report has gone to a co-ordinating committee in which the views of the various Departments will hold sway. That is very important. I am sure the opinions of Dr. Geoffrey Shannon, who is the official rapporteur to the Government, will also place great weight on the conclusions that will be reached and then we will have the input of the Attorney General.

The Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children is now defunct. We signed ourselves out of existence when we signed the third report. That approach should be considered by many committees currently in operation in the Houses. Some committees are very good and give great value but others appear to be drifting aimlessly. Perhaps a system could be introduced whereby projects are adopted by committees and that they would have a task to complete. When the task is fulfilled it could be considered whether the committee would be encouraged to continue its work in some other sphere of activity within the original terms of reference according to which the committee was set up.

It would be helpful if the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, who sits at the Cabinet table, and who to all intents and purposes is the same as a full Cabinet Minister, would seek clarification that the referendum will go ahead and an approximation of when it will take place rather than an actual date. I accept it would not be possible to give a definite date. Much of the difficulty surrounding the date of the referendum is due to the fact that when anyone reports on it he or she links it with the three by-elections. That is wrong. If the referendum is of such overriding importance then it should be held on its own without any other business obtruding on it or taking from its importance. One could say the by-elections will only take place in Donegal, Dublin South and wherever the third one is-----

Photo of Barry AndrewsBarry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Waterford.

Photo of Alan ShatterAlan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Waterford.

Photo of Mary O'RourkeMary O'Rourke (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, Waterford. The spokespersons will be out thumping the streets in those constituencies. However, I believe it is but a political ploy within the media to seek to link the referendum to by-elections, thus leading people to say that if they do what I have described, they will sign themselves out of work, for instance. The referendum should be held independently, irrespective of the number of by-elections to be held.

It is not widely known but the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, has €3 million in his budget under a subheading called "Referendum" for the holding of a referendum. He cannot say there is no money to have a referendum because he has it for that purpose. Consequently, there should be some momentum towards holding it.

Every member of the committee has worked hard on this issue and they have produced the report. There was a sense of something having happened, yet nothing has happened. There should be, in the short to medium term, an outline of how best and when to proceed. Each member of the committee that produced the report should seek to be active in the constituencies explaining it and outlining why we arrived at certain decisions. All the information is in the big yellow book but it should be explained in plain and simple terms to voters. This would be very worthwhile. There should be no onus on the Government to link the referendum to the by-elections. It is important that the referendum be held on its own and there should be no attempt to have it linked to the by-elections.

Bearing in mind all that happened, it was stated by some Members that much of the work of the Office of the Minister for Children is, sadly, linked to the publication of reports, be it the Ryan report, Murphy report or future reports. I am sure the future reports will be many and abject. There is a brouhaha over the reports. Individuals in media advertisements, civil servants, Ministers, Cabinet meetings, memoranda, etc., combine to create great sorrow over what happened and expectation over what must now be done. Underlying this is the continuing work of the Office of the Minister for Children, the constant observations he must make and the constant engagement he must have with the HSE.

I was very pleased to see so much has happened with regard to the Ryan report implementation plan. The Cabinet accepted the recommendations of the Ryan report, which was an amazing feat for any Cabinet. I do not believe I ever sat at a Cabinet table at which all the recommendations of a report were accepted. I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, on this.

The group's role is to see that implementation of the recommendations is effected clearly, concisely and with alacrity. I congratulate the Minister of State on getting the go-ahead for the appointment of the social workers. Nobody talked about this. In a time of great retrenchment, the filling of 270 social worker posts by the end of this year will be an enormous achievement. I saw an advertisement in this regard last weekend and that is why I was interested in what the Minister of State had to say. I was also interested in the emoluments that obtain. The social workers will be well worth it because their work is not of a kind that is constantly lauded throughout the land. To provide for the posts was very good. Progress is ongoing on the revised Children First guidelines.

The Minister of State referred to the assistant national director for children and families, Mr. Phil Garland. I met him at a function held recently by Ms Emily Logan and was very struck by his common sense, his enthusiasm for his work, the framework under which he will work and the outlook for his work.

The Minister of State has established an independent review group on child deaths. What he has asked it to do is very significant. I also congratulate the Minister of State and his officials on their work. There will always be dreadful reports and cases that will strike each of us to the core of our hearts although we wish no child would ever be disturbed or disarranged in life, particularly in Ireland. Significant structured progress has been made that will yield fruit.

The issue of the referendum remains. Much work has to be done to establish goodwill towards the wording that has been agreed upon, which I presume is the wording that will be accepted by the Cabinet. There will be a long lead-in time in that regard and, consequently, the sooner we know the date of the referendum, even if it is in the medium term, the sooner we can all get back to work on the issue. I am glad to have been able to speak on this matter.

Photo of Dan NevilleDan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. I would like to take up where Deputy Shatter left off regarding the report he has laid before the House, Inspiring Confidence in Children and Family Services, a strategic view of the delivery and management of children and family services prepared for the HSE by PA Consulting. Some of its findings are of great concern. The attempt to suppress the report is also of concern. Having received it last October, one would have expected the Minister to have laid it before the Houses, thus allowing a debate to ensue.

Let me consider some of the key findings of the report. It is a valuable report but it is shocking in what it exposes regarding management and the Children First guidelines. One of the key findings is that there is an urgent requirement to set out and communicate direction for the services. It found there is no shared view about what the service model should look like within the HSE. The report states, "The HSE needs an overall strategy and service model that will provide guidance to local managers and practitioners on how they should be delivering services for children". Surely this is an essential requirement in the management of child protection in the HSE but it is not present according to the report.

The report also states, "This lack of overall direction has a profound effect on the outcomes children can expect in different parts of the country". It states that there are significant and in many cases unnecessary variations across the local health offices in how Children First is being managed and delivered. These variations can be traced to the different priorities and practices of the former health boards which have endured with the establishment of the HSE in 2005. This means that depending on where children at risk live in Ireland, they can expect to receive different services from their local health boards. In some local health offices children and their families can expect to receive practical support to help them achieve "upward spirals" in managing the challenges in their lives.

The PA consultants report states that more visible leadership was required across the levels of service as well as tighter management. Implementation of the recommendations of the Ryan Commission implementation plan and the report of the HSE taskforce will not happen, it stated, without visible leadership at all levels in the organisation. Surely these reports are a key to the future efficiency of the Executive. The implication is that there is no visible leadership at all levels.

To inspire confidence within the HSE and externally, the report states that tighter management is required as regards resources, quality of practice and outcomes for children, surely a key issue in relation to child protection. The present outcomes for children are criticised. The current management style, according to PA, tends to be reactive, crisis driven and focused on individual cases. There is a great deal of management traffic around individual cases, but much of this is not purposeful in the sense of building better delivery methods to secure better outcomes. Therefore, we have a lot of management activity, but it is not aimed at the outcomes for children, which should be the key objective rather than the system itself. At a fundamental level, as the report states, there is no clear understanding of the respective roles of professionals working with children and HSE managers. This contributes to a disconnect between service delivery at national, regional and local levels. Structures for delivering the service need to be simplified and clearer. There is a distance between frontline staff and the top of the organisation, which is unhelpful in terms of service delivery.

The report also states that it is unclear where responsibility, accountability and authority lie for children and family services, particularly at local level. At a fundamental level, this means people within the HSE and outside do not know who is responsible for child protection. At the levels of the delivery system, people can have responsibility without corresponding authority. Some inherent tensions were detected between two critical local roles, the principal social worker and the child care manager. In that regard the report states, "These can work well, but they depend on the quality of relationships." Roles have been also tailored over the years to manage specific issues, adding to the complexity of delivery. Roles and responsibilities, therefore, need to be simplified and clarified.

Within the HSE, the report states, that working and referring cases across the service is still complicated. There are issues around how professional and service boundaries constrain referrals between services. A more profound issue relates to identified service gaps, for example, access to psychological services for children who clearly have behavioural issues but are not diagnosed as psychotic. This can often leave social workers managing very complex cases without appropriate service supports. Supports for social workers and their managers are underdeveloped. Social work professionals work in one of the most challenging areas in the HSE. The human scale of what they have to do is of enormous significance.

The reports states that there is inconsistent application of practice in implementing child protection and support. There are significant and unhelpful variations, in practice, across the local health offices, for example, in relation to how patients are referred and how risk is assessed and the thresholds between the different levels of service required. The service is not being managed based on current intelligence.

The HSE, states PA, currently produces a wealth of data on how children and family services are being delivered. That is positive, but it goes on to state, however, that this is not being routinely used by managers across the service to provide intelligence on how it is being delivered, resources allocated and what outcomes the service is delivering for children. The current data are not perfect, but nonetheless represent a sound starting point from which to deliver intelligence-led delivery of service. It shows that the intelligence and information exists within the HSE, but it is being ignored. That is the only interpretation one can put on that.

Based on the findings of the report, it was recommended that the HSE should take the following actions. It should agree and communicate a clear service model for the future that focuses on outcomes for children. This should guide both managers and all practitioners on their priorities for engaging with children at risk. The executive, it recommends, should be consistent in how it delivers services, strengthens collaboration and provides supports for people working with children and their families. An intelligence system should be developed that uses currently available data to improve the service and to simplify and make clearer key roles and responsibilities across the delivery system.

The report's focus has been to propose changes that are absolutely necessary, according to PA, to bring clarity to key roles both internally and externally, ensuring that the structure reflects and drives key functions. I congratulate Deputy Shatter for laying this before the House. Surely, the only interpretation that may be put on this report is that we have a dysfunctional child protection service.

Photo of Pat BreenPat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the opportunity to participate in the statements on this very important issue, the development of child welfare and protection services. I commend my party colleague and Front Bench spokesman, Deputy Shatter, on all the work he has done on behalf of the victims. In recent years, as a result of the bravery of these victims, the true extent of the abuse and the neglect inflicted on children in the care of church and State in this country has been revealed, and it is shocking.

The commission set up to inquire into child abuse reported in 2009 that sexual abuse was endemic in State-run institutions for boys and girls and that children lived a life of daily terror, having been beaten over more than five decades. The report is a sad indictment of church and State authorities who were in charge of these institutions. No matter where one travels outside Ireland now, one finds the recent media reports on the Catholic Church have been broadcast on televisions all over the world. Ireland is one of many European countries where this has happened.

The commission, during its investigations, heard harrowing cases of abuse from people. Almost 2,000 children spent their childhood in 216 institutions in the country, mainly between the 1940s and the 1980s. We then had the publication of the Murphy report into sexual abuse in the Dublin archdiocese. That report found that 320 children were abused by 46 priests in that diocese between 1975 and 2004. The Murphy report concluded that one of the biggest tragedies of the abuse was that children were not listened to or believed and that those in authority were covering up. It is extremely worrying that even as far back as 20 years ago these children were not believed. I am thankful that things have changed.

None of these investigations would have been possible, and the true extent of the abuse would never have been revealed, were it not for the bravery of the victims who have spoken out. I salute those victims for their courage, which has struck me whenever I met them. Many other victims are suffering in silence and may never be able to speak out. Children who are abused carry the scars with them for the rest of the lives. It is a life sentence for many of them. I have met many of these victims in more recent times, and it can be seen in their faces that they carry scars.

So many children have been destroyed by abuse. It is not only in institutions that abuse takes place; it also takes place in family homes, and many people are afraid to speak out about it. Our Constitution, and the 1916 Proclamation, promise to cherish all our children equally; however, even today, many children in this country are at serious risk and are being let down by those in responsibility who are charged with looking after them. The reports into the deaths of two young teenagers, which were first published by my colleague Deputy Shatter, point to the fact that the safety of children who are under State care is still not guaranteed. That is why I welcome today's discussion. I have no doubt that were it not for Deputy Shatter's action in publishing the first of these reports, the HSE would have dragged its heels and the official reports would never have been published.

These vulnerable children were let down by society and by the fact that we do not have an adequately resourced, 24-hour social service to deal with cases such as these. Our social services are of the fire brigade type; they do not have the resources to be anything else. Last week, the Government's special rapporteur on child protection, Geoffrey Shannon, called for an independent review of social services for vulnerable children. Does the Minister of State support this view and, if so, when will he set up this review? It should be set up immediately.

Between 2000 and 2008, approximately 7% of unaccompanied minors dealt with by the HSE went missing. That is extremely worrying. Between 2000 and 2009, a total of 501 children went missing from the care of the HSE. Only 67, or 13%, of these children were retraced. Twenty-two unaccompanied minors went missing from State care in 2008; only five of these children were later located. In 2007, 32 children went missing, only 12 of whom were traced. Again, it was required for Deputy Shatter to publish the joint protocol agreed between the Garda Síochána and the HSE for dealing with children who go missing in care. This is a serious problem, and there is concern that some of the children who go missing are trafficked and subjected to sexual exploitation.

There have been several investigations, and report after report has been published, but little has been done to deal with the situation. Many organisations have introduced clear child protection policies and established clear guidelines on reporting cases of abuse. There was a high-profile case in the UK a few years ago in which the caretaker of a school abused and murdered two children attending the school. It is good that clear guidelines have been established on the reporting of abuse.

Garda vetting is part of that process, and something to which I draw the attention of the Minister of State. As a result of the increased demand for vetting, more than 400,000 applications are received each year. There is a major backlog, with applications taking anything from four to 12 weeks to be processed. I urge the Minister to ensure this procedure is speeded up. Employers use the procedure to ensure that individuals convicted of abuse or other crimes are not employed or offered other positions of responsibility in working with children, young people or vulnerable adults. Voluntary organisations are availing of this service. The Garda Vetting Office in Thurles needs more resources to deal the large volume of cases. I appeal to the Minister of State to bring this matter to the attention of his colleague, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern.

Children's perceptions of the system which has been set up to protect them are not good. The report on service users' perception of the Irish protection system found that children who used the system found it to be "unsympathetic". Calls to the ISPCC's Childline service increased by almost 25% last year. This in itself speaks volumes. Childline received more than 815,000 calls last year but, unfortunately, was able to answer only 512,000 of them, an answer rate of 62%. According to Childline, there are thousands of children who continue to suffer abuse, and services are not in place to assist these children and their families. Many children in this country continue to be denied their basic human rights. In 2010, it is a sad indictment of this country. Many speakers have raised the importance of holding a referendum on children's rights. I urge the Minister to give a clear commitment to hold this referendum and to inform the House when it will take place.

The Government needs to commit more resources to addressing this major challenge of protecting the most vulnerable people in our society. When we fail children, it is extremely sad. It is up to the State, and us as legislators, to make sure we protect them. As the Minister of State said in his final words, it will require commitment, imagination and hard work to assist these children.

Photo of Joan BurtonJoan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Most people in Ireland found the revelations of recent years about what was happening in institutions in the archdiocese of Dublin and other dioceses to be stunning and shocking. We should pause to think of the people who highlighted this and made it a subject of discussion in Ireland despite an incredible culture of inherited secrecy. They endured, at times, public and political odium for having the courage to speak out. In addition, many within the church who were unhappy with what was going on earned the odium and criticism of the church.

Politicians like Dr. Noel Browne, Frank Cluskey and a succession of Deputies from various parties have sought to change the culture of secrecy which turned this country into a closed society after independence. People can find it difficult to understand how closed societies can develop in countries that are fanatically Islamic but the manner in which people thought and addressed issues in post-independence Ireland was governed by secrecy and a church-State relationship in which the former had the upper hand. Politicians bent their knees to the former Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. McQuaid, and other churchmen. Dr. McQuaid's influence was at least as powerful as that of the President, Taoiseach and Cabinet of his day. People who dared to dissent from the powerful princes of the church found it difficult to air their views. Irish society owes a huge debt to the ground breaking journalists and film-makers, including Mary Raftery and Bruce Arnold, who tried to describe what really happened. However, I am not convinced that the culture of secrecy and the tendency to defend the status quo no longer holds sway over significant parts of the public service.

The victims who spoke so courageously to the Ryan commission must have found it incredibly difficult to share their intimate and painful stories. A shocking revelation in the Ryan report is that many leading churchmen, including officeholders, were trained in canon and civil law. These were not ignorant people. They were fully aware of the serious nature of these crimes under both canon law and the criminal code.

One of the images of the century is the photograph of Irish bishops dressed in their long robes and kissing the Pope's ring. This was, of course, an all-male delegation which did not even include a nun as adviser, never mind lay women. I am sure most younger people would find it extraordinary to learn how senior members of the Irish church regard themselves. The only people who have distinguished themselves in this difficult period have been the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, and several of the Northern bishops, who are trying to find a framework that can address the appalling abuse suffered at the hands of clergy.

Many of the abused children came from working class areas. Their parents were not well off and were flattered that a priest would befriend their sons or daughters. Religious families were likely to admire the church and welcome their local priests as friends or patrons. The extent to which these priests felt free to pick out vulnerable children in working class communities is extraordinary. In some cases where parents became aware that something was wrong, the full majesty of the law was used to brush their concerns aside.

The work of the Murphy commission should be expanded to cover other dioceses because while it may be argued that the report on the Archdiocese of Dublin established a pattern of abuse and that subsequent investigations may not reveal much more, I imagine those who were abused in other dioceses feel it is important to have their stories confirmed so that they can reassert their value as human beings.

I argued earlier that the culture of secrecy continues to pervade areas of public administration in a very unhealthy way. This is a hangover from the days when Ministers and the Civil Service were dominated by clerical thinking. A number of recent issues reflect this culture.

This week, I have listened to descriptions by adoptees of their search for their birth parents. I urge the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Barry Andrews, to let in the light. His Department holds to the incorrect and out-of-date notion that adoption case workers, be they nuns or lay people, agreed some sort of clause which gave complete confidentiality to mothers giving their children up for adoption and is not breakable this side of the grave. For the past 25 years, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have dealt with the issues that arise when people search for their birth parents.

There are three parties to an adoption, namely, the birth parents, the child and the adoptive parents, and they are bound intimately together forever. This does not mean people do not love and respect their adoptive parents but the Minister of State would do a huge service if he removed the fear and allowed the Adoption Board and the various adoption societies to let in the light. Some adopted people will never seek out their birth parents but that search is part of others' realisation of their individuality. It is wrong that the Department and the Adoption Board refuses to facilitate searches. The voluntary register was always intended as a sham. I do not know how much money was wasted on it but I would be amazed if it reconnected 100 families. I ask the Minister to provide a platform for debate. There are three sets of interests to be considered, but adopted persons have a right. A child has a fundamental right, under the UN Convention, to know who his or her parents are and to know their biological and personal history.

It is a hangover from clerical domination of this country that this approach still exists here when we know that it has been successfully done in a number of countries without people's worlds collapsing around them. It can be done sensitively and intelligently and I encourage the Minister of State to do that.

Photo of James ReillyJames Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I thank my colleague, Deputy Shatter, for bringing out this new report. When the anger subsides, there is a sense of sadness that time and again, reports are suppressed, redacted and delayed. Cui bono - to whose benefit? Certainly, it is not to the benefit of children, nor to memory of those who died in care.

I will start with a series of questions. I do not wish to be overly cynical, but I wonder will we get answers. Why are the reports being suppressed? Why are they taking so long to come to light? Why are children being put at risk? Why are there not sufficient social workers? Why do children not have a constant key worker?

At a talk given by Fr. Peter McVerry, who deals with the homeless, the other night in Donabate organised by Donabate and Portrane Community Council he informed us in a simple way about some of the difficulties that children and homeless people have, their lack of self-esteem and their sense of worthlessness. Often their families let them down and did not care for them. They then go into what we call euphemistically "care" and find that they are sent from Billy to Jack, not knowing until the last minute where they will sleep that night. One person had 40 different workers involved in his case and God knows how many different bed and breakfast accommodations he stayed in over his life, which was a short one. It is all the more sad when one considers that he volunteered to go into care. The message he got on a daily basis from our care services and from us was that we did not care. We did not care enough to have one person to whom he could turn, with whom he could have a bond, with whom he could trust, and whom he could feel respected and cared for him. The sad fact is he is not just one, but one of many.

The importance that all psychiatrists and psychologists attach to a child's need in terms of his or her normal development to have someone to whom he or she can turn is well known, and all the problems that arise from not having that person as a constant are also well known. This is not a child-friendly service, as if there was any need for me to say it. The reports that we have seen to date prove that beyond doubt. There are many good people working within the service but they lack a cohesive structure.

The report states, better than I ever could, what is wrong with this system. There is no effective early intervention. Many of the children who become homeless and whose parents care for them could have remained at home had the intervention taken place in the home earlier to support that child and to support the parents to support the child, but that is not happening. We do not even have sufficient inpatient beds for children and adolescents with mental health issues, which is another reason people end up homeless and on the street. Those are matters we need to look at and about which we can do something.

This report shows a chaotic system. It states that it is unclear where responsibility, authority and accountability lies for the children and family services, particularly at local level. There is an echo of that throughout the HSE. The Fitzgerald report showed that people did not know what their jobs were and did not know who was reporting to whom. We should not be surprised to see it in our child care services.

I will not attack the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, personally about this. He has a duty of care and I want to know by the time these statements are finished his plan to improve the situation. Much of this he has inherited and I am not laying it at his door. From this point on, he must be seen to be proactive, to change this and to be open and transparent. Who gains by all of this secrecy? The children do not.

The report also states that at all levels of the delivery system people can have responsibility without corresponding authority, that supports for social workers and their managers are undervalued, and that there is inconsistent application of practice, protection and supports. It states that the service is not managed based on current intelligence that there is no single remedy or quick fix. That seems to be an approach that is taken continually. It states that the scale of the change is not to be underestimated and ultimately requires fundamental change at corporate and individual level to deliver and support services.

I want to move on to other parts of the report. It states that there is no communication, no proper protocols, no planning for the forward movement of a child in care through the system. The reports states that the authors' finding that the framework for child protection is clearly articulated at national level through Children First but that the HSE has struggled to convert this national framework to a sensible and understandable model for delivering child protection that reflects international experience and research.

The report states that the HSE has still not agreed how it will implement the agenda for children services. It states that the absence of a clear model for delivering child protection in the context of wider children and family supports is a major constraint on the current delivery. It goes on and on. It state, for example, that the needs of children come second to the demands of the service, and that collaboration between services and agencies is uneven and for the most part unacceptable from the perspective of the child.

The HSE was set up several years ago with the idea of having one body to deliver a uniformity of care and service throughout the country, yet what we find is disfunctionality and outcomes predicted on geography. It has failed at every level to do what it was set up to do. I ask the Minister of State to help us and inform the House and the people as to how he will address this. This requires fundamental change. One of the fundamental matters is that all of the reports should be made available.

When the Comptroller and Auditor General points out that he does not know whether PPARS cost €180 million, €200 million or €220 million and no one is held responsible, is there an echo when the Minister of State tells the Dáil in March that there were 20 children in care who died and a few days later that figure rises to 23? Do we know how many have died in care?

How can we learn from all our mistakes if reports are continually suppressed? How can we, as Deputy Shatter already pointed out, have a situation where somebody is asked to do a review and recommends a full review without knowing that a full review has already been done a year before? It is an insult to the individual concerned and to the children. That is at a senior management level and, I suspect, at a political level too.

Many people and some of the previous speakers want to lay all of this at the doorstep of the clerics in some indirect fashion. I do not. I blame the lack of accountability in public life, the lack of transparency and the lack of fairness.

This report was made available because, yet again, Deputy Shatter sought it out and made it available. I do not understand why the Minister of State does not come up front and make such reports available. He should open up the debate and let in the light on children, as the campaign says. He should bring consistency to how the HSE delivers services, strengthen, collaborate and provide supports for people working with children, develop an intelligence-led system that uses data currently available and simplify and make clear the key roles and responsibilities. We must get away from the system, described by a man called Balint many years ago as this collusion of anonymity, which states: "I am not responsible for that part, they are not responsible for this part and he was not responsible." The result is children die and children who survive care end up as dysfunctional adults and may be homeless for years. It is time this society grasped the nettle and took a new approach. This is within the gift of the Minister of State by ensuring that all reports are made available and published. There should there be an open, frank and public debate.

The Children's Rights Alliance issued a statement on 9 March:

Statistics on preventable or unusual child deaths and the findings and learnings from inquiries are not systematically gathered and hence it is not possible to track and evaluate cases, establish trends and give clear recommendations on how such deaths could be prevented. Ultimately, information about the death of one child may lead to the prevention of another.

This is a key point.

Photo of Bernard DurkanBernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank my colleague, Deputy Shatter, and others for making this debate possible. Like the Acting Chairman, I spent a considerable period of time as a member of a health board. Like every other Member of this House, including Deputy Reilly and others, I gleaned some degree of experience over that time. A number of speakers referred to issues which resonate readily with regard to the reporting system. When a concern is expressed by either a public representative or a practitioner, a sequence of events is supposed to take place. Up the line reporting is supposed to happen. Reference has been made to people who have responsibility without authority. Everybody has responsibility and authority; they have responsibility for acknowledging what exists and reporting to the next highest authority. That is the pecking order and the way the system is supposed to work. However, this is not the way things are working even yet.

Last week, I received what I can only describe as petulant correspondence from a staff member of the HSE, inquiring in a condescending fashion as to what I was inquiring about. I had brought to the attention of the authorities the concern of a parent in respect of the welfare of a child. It would have been far better for the individual concerned to go about his or her business and address the issue and make an accurate report of findings. My experiences over the years have not changed in that regard. I have had occasion to bring to the attention of at least three Departments, by way of parliamentary questions and telephone calls and by every means available to me as an elected public representative, the concern expressed by a parent or parents in respect of the welfare of a child who was enticed away from home by an older person. I went through all the processes and procedures and followed all the rules and regulations. I encouraged those with and without authority to take responsibility. I attended case meetings. However, the result was that nothing happened. The statutory authorities did not respond and, eventually, the concerned parent was forced to go to court, at the individual's own expense, to obtain rights for the child. This is an appalling situation. This did not happen 20 or 30 years ago, but within the past two years and it continues to happen.

I do not wish to castigate people who have responsibilities because Members of this House are castigated enough from time to time and I am sure we are very highly regarded by all the people who do the castigating. However, the time has come for everybody to stand up and speak for themselves and from their respective corners. From my experience, I have found serious breaches in the action required to be taken by the responsible authorities at several levels in all of the Departments with responsibility in this area.

In a case referred to in the past week, I was asked for clarification from the Department of Education and Science and this is to be welcomed. I expect to hear from another Department that it is not possible to give me the information in the time available. When issues of child welfare and child abuse which cause public concern arise, it is usually discussed after the event. Sometimes these matters are brought to the attention of the authorities before the event, with ample time for everybody concerned to take action. Sadly and tragically, it is only when one deals directly with a case that one fully recognises and appreciates the degree to which urgent action is required and this means instantaneous action on a 24-hour basis. This also means follow-up action and careful observation of the developments in each individual case. If this does not take place, then further serious problems will ensue. It is then that people decide to divest themselves of responsibility. It is only when things go wrong that those who had authority and responsibility ask for more legislation but it is too late at that stage.

There have been several serious cases of child neglect and child abuse where existing legislation was quite ample to deal with the situation and no action was taken. I do not wish to list the individual cases but I am fully aware of all the circumstances in each case. In assessing the situation we must be very careful and assume that very vulnerable people - children - are involved. We, as legislators, and others outside the House in responsible positions have a particular responsibility to act with authority.

It is easy to make the excuse that one has no authority but it should be a case of going to the person who has authority. This action is open to everybody. One must have regard to the fact that one cannot wrongfully accuse a person but if there is a genuine concern, one must go to the person in authority and bring the concern to his or her attention so that action can be taken. We should not have to wait for six months, six weeks or six years for action to ensue.

Photo of Barry AndrewsBarry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the contributors to the discussion which was very informative and showed speakers to be well-informed. This discussion underlines what the Oireachtas does best. Having a much calmer discussion about this, without the white heat from an unfolding drama, is a much more constructive approach.

The Government remains committed to a referendum which will give expression to children's rights in the Constitution. The Joint Committee on the Constitution was asked to put together a consensual and agreed wording which was published after two years of deliberations in February 2010. Each Department is now determining how the proposed wording will impact on policy. The Government will then consider their memorandums and make up its mind on the wording and the date for the referendum. I am aware of the dangers of unravelling the political consensus which was so carefully and creatively put together at the constitutional committee. I remain committed to this referendum and believe it is an important piece in the jigsaw of making Ireland a safer place for children and ensure their rights will weigh more heavily.

We must end putting parental considerations or institutional reputations before the rights of the child. That would be a lasting legacy after all these reports and it would mean we have a more mature society and can allow children to have rights in and of themselves.

I note Deputy Shatter's intention to publish the PA Consulting report today. I have no difficulty with this but I must point out it was never intended for publication. It is a management document to drive change in the delivery of child services, stopping, for example, the confusion between social worker and child manager to which Deputy Neville referred.

The report also recommended the establishment of a leadership position to deal with child protection. Phil Garland has been appointed HSE assistant national director for children and families. The report is beginning to bear fruit. We are, however, in an industrial relations situation which has made it somewhat difficult to drive change.

There has been a proliferation of reports, particularly about the implementation of Children First. Members quoted from the PA Consulting report when they could have easily quoted from the my office's report on the programme which had the same narrative and raised the same issues such as differential compliance. I am getting tired of having to defend the existing position on Children First. We need change and have the guidelines implemented uniformly across the country with no postcode lottery or excuses anymore.

While I am willing to accept political responsibility, I cannot do this job on my own. Neither can Phil Garland do his job on his own. He needs buy-in at the highest level of the HSE while I need buy-in at the highest political levels. When we were responding to the Ryan report-----

Photo of Alan ShatterAlan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Is there resistance to this buy-in?

Photo of Barry AndrewsBarry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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No.

The Government responded to the Ryan report with an implementation plan. We have already put in place leadership positions with specific responsibility for children and families. An additional 200 social workers will be recruited which in the current economic context is an extraordinary commitment. Not only is €15 million provided for the implementation plan to effect these changes, €3 million has been set aside for a referendum this year, as Deputy O'Rourke said.

There is not enough reference to child protection at the highest level of the HSE. I have never heard its chief executive officer, Professor Drumm, make a speech on child protection. The new HSE chief executive officer will have to take this on at the highest level. We are now falling over reports on the implementation of Children First when we need to move on.

Children First is the core document for child protection and welfare services. While we are ambitious about the referendum, if we cannot get the implementation of Children First right then we will have nothing to shout about.

I reject the claims of a cover-up of failings of child protection. The terms quoted from the PA Consulting report were the same used in the report published last week by the HSE such as "wholly inadequate and unprofessional responses to children's protection and welfare" and "services that did not deliver to children".

The only material missing in the HSE report was the specific details about what happened to the poor unfortunate individuals contained in the case review which was published by Deputy Shatter. I have telephone calls to my office on a regular basis from their families concerned about these continuing revelations. Instead of highlighting their details, we need to learn from their experiences.

I have always been the staunchest supporter of social workers. The PA Consulting report stated social workers work in the most challenging area of the HSE. However, if social workers want to be treated as the professionals they are, then failure to achieve minimum professional standards must carry with it consequences, as it does in every other profession. That itself is a catalyst for change and an improvement.

We are at a particular point in reforming the delivery of child welfare and protection services. The HSE has initiated its own reforms with the setting up of regional directors of operations and different changes in responsibilities. We have begun the reform of the delivery of child welfare and protection services particularly with standardising business processes. We will be introducing a knowledge management system that will ensure that at any one time we will be able to elicit the kind of information we need.

I do not doubt the motives behind Deputy Shatter's "Let in the Light" website but I reject the notion we are trying to cover anything up. We are trying to drive change while protecting privacy, particularly that of the children of these unfortunate people who have died. We must strike a balance between protecting their privacy and having transparency and full disclosure. We are not trying to hide behind their privacy.

Deputy Breen raised the issue of delays in the Garda vetting process of which I am aware. The Garda has informed me it is recruiting more personnel to deal with the backlog. Deputy Burton raised the sensitive issue of adoption tracing and asked for it to be opened up to see how many people have been matched. The number of matches is on average the same as it is in other jurisdictions which the 2009 Adoption Board annual report identified.

However, a Supreme Court judgment on a pre-1952 adoption, of which Deputy Shatter is aware, states a balance must be struck between the right to privacy of the natural mother and the right to know. It is an extremely sensitive issue.

Deputy Reilly asked why so many reports were redacted. I recall that recently when Deputy Shatter asked at the Joint Committee on Health and Children for the reports into the cases of young person A and B to be published, he said he did not mind if they were redacted.

Photo of James ReillyJames Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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In the absence of any report a redacted one is better than nothing but it is not the best report to receive.

Photo of Barry AndrewsBarry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I accept that. It is better than nothing. That is the reason we put certain reports into the public domain as best we can. It should not be assumed that because that is not done in a timely fashion it supports a view that we are tolerant of cover-up because we are not.