Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

I move:

That the Monageer report in full be referred to the Joint Committee on Health and Children for the committee's consideration both of the substance of the report and to determine whether it should be published in full and submissions requested on the recommendations made in the report.

The Fine Gael Party decided we needed to discuss the Monageer report in this House. It is particularly relevant that we are discussing a contemporary report as opposed to a historical report into children's services here. It is particularly relevant also that the Monageer report should form the key item for our discussion in Fine Gael Private Members' time.

At the outset I extend sincere sympathy and condolences to the relatives of the Dunne family on the tragic deaths of their family members two years ago. It is not the purpose of this debate to contribute in any way to their distress but rather to examine the lessons that can be learned from the report, such as it is, that is available to us.

The Monageer report is what we call a redacted report. Many people have asked the meaning of "redacted". It means that huge sections of the report are blacked out. Pages 92 to 106, inclusive, and 109 are blacked out. Further along in the report pages of the recommendations are blacked out also. What we have is a redacted report into a tragic event. One could call it censoring or that it is not the fully story, and it raises serious questions. It is edited, deleted, suppressed and we do not know the reasons for that. That makes it difficult to read the report because we do not have the full information which the inquiry team wished to give the Government. I understand that is on legal advice from the Attorney General.

A committee of three people produced the report but we do not have the report in full. We do not have the full details of what happened and we do not have the full recommendations. It is very difficult, therefore, to act on the report. That is the most serious problem we face in regard to this report. I do not know the reason the procedures led to this outcome but that is what happened.

Our motion is an attempt to ensure, as in the Kelly Fitzgerald case, that the report is referred to a committee of the Houses of the Oireachtas where it can be considered and we can ensure its recommendations are acted upon, implemented and monitored.

Seven out of the 26 recommendations and 15 of the 31 conclusions in the report are blacked out. The report raises a range of concerns and wide-ranging questions about current child protection services in the country. It raises questions also about an out-of-hours social work service. This tragedy happened on a Saturday when an out-of-hours social work service was not available.

I ask the Minister of State, who I understand may have to leave shortly, to re-examine the information he has been given about the costings of an out-of-hours social work service because they may not be the amount the Minister has quoted, which was €15 million. An out-of-hours service available to the gardaí, curates and a range of people is very important and might have prevented this tragedy.

Another key issue in the report is that the Children First guidelines are not applied consistently across the State. There is a strong recommendation in the Ryan report on that very issue. The Ryan report is a contemporary report which states that those guidelines are not applied consistently across the State and recommends that they should be so applied.

Because so much of it is blacked out it is difficult to understand the vital lessons that must be learned from the Monageer report. If we cannot learn lessons from this tragedy, how can we avoid a similar tragedy occurring again? I look forward to hearing what the Minister of State has to say about the way he intends to proceed with this report. He has tabled an amendment to the motion which states that whether the report can be referred to the committee will depend on further legal advice. I ask him to bring the House up to date in that aspect. I hope he will be able to tell the House that this report will be referred to the relevant committee.

In recent years we have had many reports on the neglect of children, not just the Ryan report, which is the most dramatic and comprehensive report ever produced. It is the most comprehensive report ever published in the history of the State into child protection and child care services, and it is a damning indictment. In more recent years, however, we had the Kilkenny incest case, the Kerry babies case, the Kelly Fitzgerald case, the Madonna House report, the McColgan report, the McCoy report, the Hynes report and now the Monageer report. What we see in this report is that the risk to children remains and there is an absence of urgency in putting in place the necessary measures to ensure our children are protected and potential tragedy averted.

There is a group of children who are currently very vulnerable. I do not have time to go into all of the details but the Health Service Executive 2007 report contains a good deal of detail. The immigrant children who have gone missing in this country are a key vulnerable group as are the 247 children in adult psychiatric inpatient care facilities. We also have the closure of local child and family services throughout the country to any case but the most urgent psychiatric emergency. That is the position today. The vast majority of those services throughout the country only take the most acute psychiatric emergency referrals, and we still do not have the out-of-hours social work service.

People are frustrated that child protection is not getting the priority it deserves. The inquiry team acknowledged that the fundamental problem has been the State's failure to provide an out-of-hours social work service. The Minister must respond on that later.

I want to raise a number of issues in the report which are of major concern, the first of which is the assessment of the early intervention teams throughout the country. A great deal of criticism has been expressed about the way they are acting currently. Major problems are being experienced including files not being sent from Donegal to Wexford and consent needed before any files or information is sent, which means clients get lost along the way, so to speak. There is a good deal of information in the report about that and we need a plan of action to address it. That is a most serious problem. We are putting money and resources into early intervention teams and if they are not working effectively we must understand the reason and take action.

On the Disability Act 2005, this was a very vulnerable family who needed intervention from the disability services. They did not get the kind of intervention that was needed.

This report focuses mainly on frontline staff. There is no analysis of management. That aspect is missing from this report. There is a chronology of events and of whom the family had contact with, but there is no analysis of the findings before the report makes its recommendations. The inquiry team, wrongly in my view, excluded the resource issues. How do we know the front-line staff dealing with the family had the resources they needed, if the inquiry excluded resource issues from its terms of reference? It is extraordinary that this was done in the current climate.

A number of points should be made about the people who responded to this situation. Sensitivity was shown by the undertaker when she saw what was essentially classic pre-suicide behaviour. She attempted to get help. I hope the people who worked so hard to try to help this family do not feel guilty about what they did. They really tried. Many people made efforts. The gardaí were contacted out of hours and made several efforts to ensure services were available. However, no key worker was ever appointed to this family so there was nobody to whom the gardaí could go. They had no pre-existing information on which to act.

A great deal more could be said about the suicide risk issue, and I am sure Senator Mary White will comment on this. I cannot accept the report's conclusion that it was not clear that anything could have been done that would have prevented this terrible tragedy. With proper assessment and management, a key worker, proper assessment of the family and perhaps the involvement of psychiatric services, there might have been a different outcome. Huge issues arise from this report. I do not have time to comment on the Minister's response regarding what he intends to do. He intends to appoint a type of super manager, but if there are insufficient people in the front-line services, a super manager will be unable to do his or her job.

I commend the motion. A lack of co-ordination of services is apparent from this report. I could say a great deal more about it but I do not have sufficient time. This motion would put in place a framework for ensuring that the recommendations are implemented and enforced.