Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I also welcome Senator Mary White's references to the Council of Europe. At the outset, it is important that we start from the right philosophical and values base whenever we speak about child welfare and child protection services and the priority we give children in our society. The Council of Europe, for example, among other matters, spoke of the way we incarcerate young offenders with older offenders, effectively putting them into a school for crime in many cases simply because our knee-jerk response in criminal justice terms almost overcomes the more important issues of child welfare and how we rehabilitate young offenders so that they become more solid citizens.

I could speak about the issue I raised this morning when I drew the attention of the House to a family who have been told by the HSE that the type of speech therapy facility their child with Down's syndrome needs is just not available and they must go into the private sector to find it at a cost of approximately €5,000. That raises questions about how we regard the most vulnerable members of society.

I commend the Minister of State on a comprehensive speech — which I both listened to and read — which sets out clearly the strategy and structures. I have spoken about the values that must underline this debate which, above all, must be ones of respect for human dignity. I note Senator Norris was at pains to tell us the family does not always work best. Equally, we can acknowledge that the family generally works best. We should always start from the presumption that the family is the best place to secure a child's welfare. Sadly, it is a rebuttable presumption in many cases and that is where the State needs to step in.

The best way for the State to protect children is by supporting and working in partnership with families and through early intervention and prevention. There are generally high levels of support and professional commitment among public health nurses and social workers in providing for the needs of children and young people at risk, but there are a number of issues which need to be addressed.

There are ever-increasing demands on child protection and welfare services. There are long waiting lists for children at risk to be assigned a professional social worker, yet I am informed there is no central collation of these waiting lists for social assessment for a child deemed to be at risk or suspected of having been abused. There is an understandable fear that child protection services have become increasingly occupied with crisis intervention rather than operating the necessary comprehensive preventative and early intervention service.

Access for young people to specific services provided by the HSE, such as YAP and Extern, is restricted as the child must first have an assigned social worker. Given the difficulties in getting children assigned to social workers in the first instance, this means there effectively can be no access in many cases. Without doubt, the current HSE recruitment embargo is accentuating problems and all of this means vulnerable families and children are under increasing pressure and strain.

The Children's Rights Alliance has recommended that a comprehensive audit be undertaken of all support services for families and children provided by both the HSE and the Department of Social and Family Affairs. We need to identify where service is being provided and where there are gaps. As I stated, there must be a central collation of waiting lists for social worker assessments and we need to promote the work carried out by various groups, which carry out innovative work in the area of family support through early intervention and whose volunteers often offer regular support, friendship and practical help to young families in their own homes, helping to prevent family crises and breakdown.

I will conclude by referring to disparaging comments made by my esteemed colleague, Senator Norris, about the debate yesterday on the subject of abortion in the British House of Commons. He was disquieted by the fact that somebody stated that among the most dangerous places to be in the world today is in the mother's womb. Whatever about the wisdom of that comment, whenever we speak about the dignity of the person and children's welfare, we must not be worried about being too politically correct. Our job is to treat all people with dignity but to look hard at having a consistent respect for human life. That will embrace unborn life but it must equally embrace the 5,000 in our society to whom the Minister of State referred who are either in residential care or who are being fostered. Those people matter. They, along with the unborn and along with other vulnerable citizens in our society, must be the last, not the first, to suffer when cutbacks are being made.