Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As regards the proposed amendment, Senators will realise that any well-functioning organisation will take decisions based on available evidence. Much evidence in respect of service provision will emerge from client feedback, participation in respect of reviewing how services are impacting on people, quality reviews and audits, of which we have a lot now. For example, when HIQA does its current reviews, individual children and families are interviewed, as well as foster families. HIQA talks directly to children and provides an up-to-date report on the experience of children in care. We are seeing more and more of that. Mr. Gordon Jeyes is working with children in care and those who have been in care in order to obtain continuous feedback about their experiences in the care system. All of that is welcome.

I take Senator Cullinane's point about the report of the Ombudsman for Children. There is still a big cultural job to be done in the broadest sense in our schools. We need to have more sensitivity concerning a range of services for children, including housing policy. We should carefully examine the impact of issues, events and policies on children. That general challenge should be increasingly met as the country becomes more child-centred.

We now have the guardian ad litem or GAL system in court more frequently, which involves a central approach to what children and adolescents think, including their views on courts, access, custody and adoption. That practice needs more development and judges themselves have spoken at legal seminars about how the judicial system needs to respond better to children's needs. All of that is happening in parallel to what we are trying to do with this Bill.

One section of the Bill states that in planning the provision of services in connection with the performance of functions a, b and c, the views of children must be considered. That provision is very important.

There is a problem about unintended consequences concerning this proposition. On Committee Stage in the Dáil, I changed the way this was formulated. In the original draft of the Bill, and following feedback from NGOs, Members of the Oireachtas and others, it stated that the views of children would be listened to as part of any consultation. I have taken that out now and have broadened it, so that it gives a broader direction to the agency. I agreed on reflection that the original term as drafted was too limiting.

To avoid the problem of unintended consequences, we are suggesting that any organisation would be required by law to consult on all aspects of planning and reviewing the provision of services. It could have an unintended effect of paralysing management decisions, diffusing responsibility for decisions taken, and delaying necessary change when responsiveness is critical. I am working towards achieving the broad principle, but as I have outlined, that is one concern we have as regards the proposed amendment.

The reference to consideration being given to the views of the child will ensure that the agency does so in carrying out its mandate. That will also apply to each of the agencies involved, including the Family Support Agency, education welfare boards and child protection services. In order to achieve a high quality of service, they must have a keen eye to the users of the service, namely, the children themselves. Improvements in service provision have been contributed to and led by children.

I expect this will continue in the new agency. I am satisfied the section as drafted makes the child's voice more central to the proofing of decision-making and in that sense breaks new ground. We are providing that the views of children should be taken into account but do not want to do so in a manner that could have unintended consequences. There is an obligation on everybody working in the provision of these services, including in the Child and Family Support Agency and the National Educational Welfare Board, to do this. There is a cultural issue here. Every agency working with children needs to develop ways and means of listening to children. For example, the involvement of Comhairle na nÓg with county managers in terms of putting ideas to them and other decision makers at a local level also forms part of this.