Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)
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To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her policy for the continuation of family resource centres into the future having regard to the establishment of the Child and Family Support Agency; if she will confirm the continuation and extension of the delivery of community based universal services and early intervention programmes as heretofore; if she will confirm that the ethos and culture of the Family Resource Programme will be maintained through the delivery of family supports in local communities through a community development approach; if she will confirm that the Family Resource Centre National Forum will have representation at board level within the new agency; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [56896/12]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Government has approved the heads of the child and family support agency Bill and has also agreed to the priority drafting of this Bill. The necessary legislative and organisational preparations are being prioritised in order that the agency can be established early in 2013. From its establishment the child and family support agency will have service responsibility for a range of services, including child welfare and protection services currently operated by the HSE, and domestic, sexual and gender-based violence services. The functions of the Family Support Agency and the National Educational Welfare Board will transfer into the child and family support agency upon its establishment.

The Government's consideration of these matters was informed by the recommendations of the task force on the child and family support agency which I published in July of this year. The task force considered that the agency needs to be as broadly based as possible and should include a range of prevention, early intervention, family support and therapeutic care interventions.

It is my intention that the agency will have a role in supporting families and communities. It will have the benefit in this role of 106 family resource centres which have been developed with funding from the Family Support Agency. I have seen repeatedly at first hand the work of the family resource centres. I assure the Deputy that the new agency will build on the excellent work undertaken by the Family Support Agency over the past decade and that a community-based approach will form an integral part of the new child and family support agency. I have said this repeatedly and we are absolutely committed. The child protection services cannot work properly if we do not have this base of community work and family support. I have said to the workers in the family resource centres that the ethos and the criteria by which they do their work will be maintained in the new agency.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

The composition of the board of the child and family support agency is under consideration. While the composition of the board will reflect the component organisations which are being amalgamated into the child and family support agency, the criteria for board membership will be focused on ensuring board members have the requisite mix of experience and competencies needed to steer such a large organisation providing a diverse range of personal services.

The new agency and the wider transformation of children's services represents the largest and most ambitious areas of public sector of reform embarked upon by this Government.

Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)
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I thank the Minister for her reply. As the Minister said, there are 106 of these centres throughout the country, three of them in my own constituency. They are Millennium Family Resource Centre in Glengoole, Spafield Family Resource Centre in Cashel and Three Drives Family Resource Centre in Tipperary Town. They do tremendous work with scarce resources and are providing essential front-line services in deprived communities affected by austerity, poverty and exclusion. Families challenged by poverty are particularly targeted in the centres. They deal with early intervention and prevention if at all possible and provide a range of services.

My reason for asking the question was to seek the Minister's reassurance, which she has given, and to ask her, in the context of the establishment of the child and family support agency, to confirm the continuation of these centres and their central role in the new agency, to confirm her support for the centres and for continued proper and adequate funding for them, and also to seek an assurance that the centres will have a nominee on the board of the new agency.

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The composition of the board of the child and family support agency is under consideration. While the composition of the board will reflect the component organisations being amalgamated into the child and family support agency, it is important for such an agency that the criteria for board membership ensure board members have the requisite mix of experience and competence needed to steer such a large organisation. More than 4,000 staff are being transferred to this agency. This is huge public sector reform and we must ensure the members guiding this who are on a small board that is directly accountable to me and the Department have the mix of experience and competence needed to steer such a large organisation. I expect there will be someone on the board representative of the work of the family support agency and the family resource centres, but the essential criteria for me will be the mix of skills needed to take forward an organisation of more than 4,000 people, rather than a broad mix of representative individuals from various organisations. That has not worked as a model for boards, as we saw with FÁS and other agencies.

I repeat my absolute commitment and that of the director of child and family services, Mr. Gordon Jeyes, to supporting the work that goes on in the family resource centres and the work of counselling and supporting voluntary groups, huge numbers of which are supported by the agency. That will continue.

Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)
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Will the Minister ensure there is a representative of the centres on the board? This is a new situation and these centres provided a range of vital services in local communities. If the reform the Minister talked about is to be successful, every element of the services must be represented at the highest level.

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I take the Deputy's point but I hope he accepts what I am saying about the skills level that will be essential to lead such an organisation in terms of human resources, accountancy and standards. We have discussed the findings of the independent child death review group that state we have not had standard models for risk assessment or proper inter-agency work. There has been a huge deficit in management of information across the sector, along with poor budgeting and cost management. That happened throughout the years of the bubble. A lot of work must be done now and that is the primary task of the new agency, to ensure we have a service that is fit for purpose to give the effective services we want to deliver to children and families, given the number of reports that have been published.