Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The provision of special care has been the subject of considerable research in recent years, including last year, when the Children Acts Advisory Board commissioned an independent report, which will provide an overview of the applications for admission to special care made by the HSE's local health officers. It traces and tracks outcomes for the children who were the subject of such applications up to November 2009. The research has been undertaken by Social Information Systems Limited and in addition to the Children Acts Advisory Board, the HSE and my office are represented on the steering group. Obviously, I continue to have regular meetings with the HSE to review this area and an individual has been assigned specific responsibility for special care and alternative care. Moreover, it is worth noting that under section 8 of the main Act, namely, the Child Care Act 1991, there is an obligation to have an annual review of adequacy of service, which applies across the board.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that HIQA produced a report last year into special care and high support. It concluded that serious problems existed in respect of health and safety issues and there were some issues regarding the vetting of staff. In general, however, it highlighted that the provision of services in our special care units was good by international standards and that children who were in such units were aware of their rights and felt comfortable discussing them and what they were entitled to do. The outcomes were good for those children.

I will not accept the amendment as adequate research and reports are available to us, whether through the Health Information and Quality Authority, the Children Acts Advisory Board or the statutory report that must be produced annually. In the past 18 months we have ensured the statutory report is produced more contemporaneously than used to be the case. These reports used to be published two or three years after the years in question but they are more timely now, which is a welcome change.