Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to discuss the Children First Bill 2014. As he indicated, this legislation will place on a statutory footing elements of the report, Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children. Published in 2011 by the then Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and current Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, the report underscores the Government's commitment to the rights of children. As the Minister stated in the foreword to the report:

No childhood should be shattered by abuse. No young life should be lived in the shadow of fear. While it is not possible to prevent all violence, nor possible to guarantee that no child will ever be harmed by neglect or aggression or exploitation or predation, it is our duty to do everything in our power as a Government and as a society to prevent such harm.

This begins by ensuring that children are safe and protected in all aspects of their lives – where they live, learn, pray and play.

I wholeheartedly endorse these sentiments and the Bill provides a necessary and overdue statutory basis for achieving this outcome.

The introduction of this legislation is in line with a key commitment in the programme for Government. As the Minister indicated at the time, Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children and the accompanying child protection and welfare practice handbook set out clearly how child protection was to be placed at the core of any organisation working with children. This is a basic requirement and the document details what is to be done to protect children, how it is to be done and who are the key people in each organisation to do it.

The Bill contains four key components, namely, the facilitating of reports on child protection concerns by mandated persons to the Child and Family Agency; a requirement on mandated persons to assist the agency, on request, in respect of children who have been the subject of reports to the agency under the Bill; a requirement on organisations to produce a child safeguarding statement; and provisions placing the Children First Interdepartmental Implementation Group on a statutory footing.

On the issue of mandated reporting and the requirement on mandated persons to assist the Child and Family Agency, under the Bill mandated persons will be required to report child welfare and protection concerns above a specified threshold to the agency. They will also be required to report to the agency any disclosure of harm made to them by a child. Mandated reporters will also be required to assist the agency, on request, with children who have been the subject of reports to the agency under the Bill. The list of mandated persons is set out in Schedule 2.

With regard to the requirements on organisations, the Bill provides that organisations providing services for children will have to consider the potential for risk to children availing of their services and prepare and publish a child safeguarding statement which addresses that risk. This type of audit should have been undertaken as a matter of course and formalising and standardising the practice can only be a positive development. The statement must be made available to staff and, on request, to parents, the Child and Family Agency and members of the public. This level of transparency and accountability can only be a positive development. The list of relevant service providers is set out in Schedule 1.

Committee Stage amendments in the Dáil made provision for a register of non-compliance to be administered by the Child and Family Agency. Service providers which fail, following a number of steps, to provide for the agency a copy of their child safeguarding statement will be named in a register of non-compliance. This is a useful development and will contribute to ensuring full accountability and transparency. There is nothing wrong with publishing such a register because parents have the right to know.

In addition, the Children First Interdepartmental Implementation Group, chaired by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, is in place and includes representatives of relevant Departments, the Child and Family Agency, the Health Service Executive and An Garda Síochána. The Bill includes a provision to place the group on a statutory footing and expand its membership to include representatives of all Departments. The purpose of the group is to promote the importance of Children First compliance across government and ensure a consistent approach is adopted. Departments will be obliged to produce a Children First sectoral implementation plan to address their compliance with the legislation and Children First guidance. This is a worthwhile step which will be important in ensuring Departments are held to account in this respect.

The Bill will operate side by side with the Children First national guidance which will continue to be the basis for all citizens to report concerns. It is intended that the guidance will be revised and updated to take account of new legislative obligations so as to provide in one place a comprehensive reference resource for individuals and organisations. This will provide clarity and ensure consistency between the proposed legislation and existing non-statutory obligations which will continue to operate administratively for all sections of society.Once enacted, the legislation will provide that everyone working with children will have a statutory duty to comply with the Children First national guidelines. This is a significant step in enshrining the right of protection for children and fulfils a promise made in the programme for Government. The Government has worked at all times to guarantee and protect the rights of children, as exemplified in the referendum on children's rights in 2012 and the Bill before us which I commend to the House.