Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue and I thank the Minister for coming into the House to deal with it.

As he will know, on Monday, the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, published its annual report on the regulatory activity of children's services for 2014. That report covers statutory children's residential centres, statutory foster care services, child protection and welfare services, designated centres for children with disabilities and the country's detention schools. While I must acknowledge that the report highlights findings of excellent child-centred practice, the HIQA inspection raises significant ongoing concerns about the performance and operation of Tusla. The HIQA review highlights that: "Significant variation in the performance of the Child and Family Agency services have been found in the Health Information and Quality Authority analysis of its regulation and oversight of children's services during 2014." As the Minister and I know, Tusla has a statutory responsibility to promote the welfare of children and protect those deemed to be at risk of harm. We have a duty of obligation to ensure that happens. We have seen coverage on the news of the historical abuse inquiry taking place in the North into the activities of the most notorious sexual predator that probably ever walked the face of this earth, or that we have had in this country, and how a blind eye was turned to his activities and how people in positions did not do their job. We have a responsibility in this area and the Government has a responsibility to ensure that the agency that is tasked with the responsibility to protect our children gets the necessary supports and resources.

There are serious concerns about inconsistencies in the safety and quality of children's services nationally. The management systems are not adequate in providing assurance on consistent, safe, good quality services, robust quality assurance systems, effective information systems and effective risk management processes.In some areas, children waited for significant periods of time before the level of risk to which they were exposed was assessed or until their cases were allocated to a social worker. As result of the lack of social workers, medium and lower priority cases are being put on the long finger and those children have to wait very lengthy periods to be allocated a social worker.

This report comes on the back of previous reports. A HIQA report published earlier this year into the social services in Cork showed that more than 230 children assessed as being at high risk of harm did not have an allocated social worker. HIQA states that, "children...deemed to have a high level of need...[were placed at risk by the failure to allocate social workers to them or to give them] timely access to child protection and welfare interventions". We also know what happened in Laois and Offaly but I acknowledge that when it came to our attention and the Minister's attention quick action was taken.

This is a new agency. There should be no issue with its governance or management structure. The main issue in question is that it is not adequately resourced.

The Government and the Minister cannot shirk their responsibility for the stark shortcomings in the child protection and welfare services across the country. Internal documents show the agency's board was told that a budget of less than €650 million in 2015 would lead to serious reductions in several areas. There is a clear shortfall there. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response to how he will deal with this to ensure that no child, regardless or their geographical location, will be left vulnerable to sexual predators, neglect and abuse in future.

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Troy for his question in regard to Tusla's child protection and welfare services and I welcome the opportunity to address the issues raised. At the outset, I welcome and support the work of the Health Information and Quality Authority in providing independent evidence on service delivery and challenges. It is essential that there is strong independent oversight of the quality and safety of our children's services.

On Monday last, the authority published its annual overview of the 2014 inspections of children's services in the area of child welfare and protection, children detention schools and HSE residential centres for children with disabilities. Services under the remit of my Department include child welfare and protection services, fostering services, children residential and special care centres and children detention schools.

Children's disability services are provided or funded by the HSE, under the remit of my colleague, the Minister for Health. HIQA inspects all these services on a regular basis and the inspection reports are published on the HIQA website.

On foot of each inspection report, an action plan is drawn up by the Child and Family Agency, Tusla, and agreed by HIQA.

The annual overview reiterates that the inspectors found evidence of good practice and service delivery. The overview highlighted that improvements have been made, and that further reforms are under way. As outlined in the individual reports, the overview refers to staffing pressures being experienced by those delivering these services. It also makes the point that this is only part of the picture of where improvements can be made. HIQA concludes that a unified national approach to key policies, procedures and training is required in order to achieve improved management and supervision across this suite of services.

As part of its reform programme, Tusla has engaged in a wide-ranging quality assurance programme across all 17 of its administrative areas. Improvements brought about by standardised business practices and better monitoring are beginning to take effect. These improvements are reflected in the inspection reports and I expect that they will feature more and more over time. While certain variances are to be expected between services, given the allocation and usage of resources and staff as well as population differences, Tusla is working hard at national, regional, and area level to implement and bed in a new framework of policies and standards.

In respect of staffing issues, my Department is already engaging with Tusla on this matter, and is expecting a submission on staffing and other resource issues as part of the annual Estimates cycle.

As the Deputy will be aware, issues have arisen in the midlands service area, particularly in Laois-Offaly, which were brought to my attention by Tusla. Over the last two months, Tusla has been actively addressing these issues to bring the services in the midlands in line with the national standards for protection and welfare of children. These services will also be subject to a regulatory inspection by HIQA in the coming months.

HIQA has provided a valuable critique of the services provided by Tusla, but it is important to recognise that the overview report also highlights findings of excellent child-centred practice. HIQA noted that children had ready access to information about their rights, that they participated in care planning meetings, and that they were supported in accessing records and making complaints where necessary. There is evidence that children are being listened to and helped and that they are receiving child-centred practices.

HIQA noted the progress Tusla has made, highlighting the bedding down of standardised processes and the introduction of some much-needed policies. HIQA also welcomed the agency's move to a new service model to co-ordinate provision of welfare services. The improvements identified by HIQA are in close alignment with those in Tusla's reform programme. Accordingly, this overview report strongly supports the reform programme which my Department and Tusla are driving forward. HIQA's overview report thus provides a useful benchmark of the ongoing progress and impact of this extensive reform process.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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At the outset of this discussion, I acknowledged that there were some very positive findings in the report. However, we cannot become complacent. The HIQA analysis also found significant variations in the performance of Child and Family Agency services. There are serious concerns about inconsistency in the safety and quality of children's services nationally, which is the key issue.

Internal documents show that the agency's board was told that a budget of less than €650 million in 2015 would lead to serious reductions in several areas. There is clearly a shortfall in the level of resources allocated to Tusla. There are further problems with oversight, management practices at Tusla, the whole area of how information is tracked and the presence of an adequate IT system. That was clearly demonstrated by the Laois-Offaly issue.

Since Tusla has taken over the child and family services, its oversight regime is actually less transparent than that of the HSE. For example, the quarterly report on the performance of social worker services, Measuring the Pressure, is no longer publicly available without a freedom of information request. There is no reason for this complete lack of transparency.

Planning and needs assessment is also inadequate. I have continuously highlighted the need for additional social workers and the need to address the manner in which they are hired. If someone who is going on maternity leave gives five months' notice when she is three months pregnant, I am told it is still the norm that the maternity leave cover position cannot even be advertised until the woman goes out on leave.

Can the Minister confirm that there are sufficient social workers throughout the State and that there is now a proper IT system in place? The Minister talks about the commencement of a national review of the governance system. That is unbelievable in the case of a new agency which is only in operation for 12 months. There should be no review as the governance system should have been fit for purpose from day one.

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy has pointed out, it is a new agency and we have to give it time to come to terms with all the challenges it has inherited. I agree with the Deputy that there is no question of anybody being allowed become complacent, as there are serious challenges ahead that must be overcome. The challenge for the agency is to bring uniformity across the system, in governance, reporting and care. There are many excellent people working in the system but in order that the agency can work efficiently and plan appropriately, we need access to full information. That situation is being addressed.

Tusla got a considerable increase in its budget this year. We would all like to give it more money and, with the Estimates process coming up, we will fight our corner. We gave the agency all the money we could, even giving up our national lottery fund to ensure we could maximise its funding, because it has to deliver the services on the ground.

We must, without being overly political, acknowledge that we have come out of the worst recession the country has ever endured. We know why that happened. We are actively recruiting more social workers and developing IT, and the governance issues are being addressed. HIQA's report is reassuring in so far as it points to the fact that actions have been taken and plans agreed with HIQA to address the areas identified as deficient.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue and take the opportunity to thank all who work in our service for the great work they do. We will support them in their work and in making their job easier to do by removing the current barriers.