Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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13. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her response to the Health Information and Quality Authority report into Rath na nÓg high support unit; her future plans for the unit; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48046/13]

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I seek from the Minister her personal response as Minister to the Health Information and Quality Authority's report into the Rath na nÓg high support unit, Castleblayney, County Monaghan.

I also seek her views on that report being employed to effect its closure and the closure on same campus site of the educational facility associated with that unit. While I have noted that there are plans to redesignate the site as a child well-being centre and that these are part of the future plan, I want to address the first core part of the question I submitted. The Minister has not responded to me on this point. I wrote to her in this regard two and a half weeks ago but I have not received a reply.

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I will ensure the Deputy gets a reply to that letter. As he will be aware, the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, recently published a report into Rath na nÓg high support unit outlining serious concerns. As I have said previously, Gordon Jeyes, the HSE's national director for children and family services, had met HIQA officials in September and had discussed the report with them. He informed them of his intention to close the unit by the end of October. The HSE has confirmed to me, as the Deputy will be aware, that the unit is closed.

I was very concerned to learn of the risk to the safety of children in the unit and I welcome the decisive move by the HSE to close Rath na nÓg. As the Deputy said, the HSE has advised me that the premises and resources at Rath na nÓg, Castleblayney, County Monaghan, are being redesignated to provide services as a centre for children, a child well-being centre, where they will receive supports. It will provide specialist, time-limited intervention to children within the catchment area in conjunction with local social work services under the auspices of the children and family services area manager. I hope this community resource will be of great benefit to children and families in the local area.

As I have publicly announced, the HSE has advised me that it is undertaking a national review of all residential care which will result in a reconfiguring of high support and special care units to meet the demand for special care. That review will be completed in the first quarter of 2014.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Has the Minister taken appropriate steps to establish why the national office would have instructed staff at Rath na nÓg to apply a lock-up situation there each night during the hours from 9 p.m. until 7.30 a.m. the next day? This is the core of the objections HIQA had, yet the staff were working not on their own volition but in response to a directive they had received. That directive has been defended by Mr. Jeyes, indicating that in his view any reasonable parent would behave in exactly the same way. I take a very different view. If there were real difficulties at Rath na nÓg, it is most likely that they were consequent on inappropriate placements or an inappropriate case mix rather than any failure or falling down, as it were, on the part of the highly qualified and experienced staff there. No matter how well trained and how well motivated the staff were, once the children were placed under lock and key, something that was never part of the institution in terms of that facility given that it was an open unit, and regardless of whatever relationships were being built upon, it was clear the young people were going to view those highly trained, highly professional and dedicated staff as their jailers and the relationship would collapse.

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy has gone over time. I must call the Minister.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It was never going to succeed once that situation applied. I would like to know what the Minister has established in regard to the facts of that directive.

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Let us put this in context. More than 6,000 children are in care in Ireland. A tiny proportion, 0.3%, and that is rightly so, are in residential care. They represent some of the children and young people in Ireland who are most in need of specialist care, protection and intervention.

Poor standards cannot be accepted when working with our young people in any setting. The closure of the unit was deemed to be the most effective response to the serious and ongoing failings identified and the decision was taken in the context of a broader review as well. This was an operational decision taken by Gordon Jeyes. He did it with the best interests of the children at the core of his decision-making. Any decisions that were taken in relation to the children were to ensure they were safe. That report, which I am sure the Deputy has read, outlines serious concerns about risks such as fire safety, self-harm and bullying.

They were not actively managed and the children were at risk. That is why the decisions were taken by Gordon Jeyes. I respect 100% the decisions he took in the management of this unit. I believe the right decision was taken to close this unit.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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The implication of the Minister's statement is that in some way the staff at Rath na nÓg were responsible or implicated or had fallen down in their responsibilities. That is not the case. Given it is acknowledged by Mr. Jeyes that the direction relating to the lock-down which created the fire hazard in the first place came from his office, does that not concern the Minister? Will this situation present at the only other open facility in the north east at Crannog Nua, Portrane? What is the situation there? Is this approach and practice in situ there? Are we looking at a further HIQA report that will facilitate the closure of that facility as well? We cannot all be codded all the time. We need to know the facts and the truth and it is important at the outset of the Child and Family Agency that the confidence and expectation of people that a new era is coming in be fulfilled. I am deeply worried and I put that to the Minister in writing but I still have no reply.

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy should be concerned about the detail in the report, which outlined serious and ongoing failures that were not actively managed. HIQA officials go in to inspect residential facilities. They went in and they found serious difficulties so much so that there was active involvement and engagement by HSE staff, including the director. Instead of criticising the director, we should praise him for the active role he took in managing these serious concerns. The concerns at the core of the HIQA report were as follows: "There were serious and ongoing failings identified. They were not being actively managed enough". This is an independent report. Gordon Jeyes managed that situation and he decided in the best interests of those children that the service should be closed.