Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 62: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the progress which has been made in the provision of an after office hours social worker service; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34694/10]

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Government and the HSE remain committed to the development of a comprehensive needs-based service for children at risk. In this context, the HSE established the Emergency Place of Safety Service in June 2009. This service makes provision for Gardaí to access an appropriate place of safety for children found to be at risk out of hours under Section 12 of the Child Care Act 1991. The provision of this service, which conforms with relevant regulations and standards, aims to ensure that children presenting as 'at risk' outside of normal working hours are provided with an appropriate emergency place of safety thereby reducing or eliminating social admissions of children in an acute hospital setting.

The Emergency Place of Safety service provides a standardised response across the country for children who can be appropriately placed in a family setting. This service applies outside the Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow areas where such services are already provided. The on-going operation of the service is under review by a joint HSE/Garda Committee. I am informed by the HSE that since the Emergency Place of Safety Service was established there have been 309 phone calls from an Garda Síochána with 172 children and young people having been provided with placements through the service as of 15th September, 2010.

In addition, and instead of developing a stand alone social work out of hours service, it has been agreed to develop alternative proposals based on a more integrated approach which builds on the HSE's existing out of hours services including GPs, acute hospital services and mental health services. This should provide a more effective and integrated service by using existing resources and strengthening the links between services such as mental health and social work to appropriately address incidents occurring outside usual working hours. The aim is to ensure that persons seeking personal social services outside normal working hours can be provided with appropriate advice, information, support and, in emergency situations, access to specialist staff, such as staff working in the areas of mental health and suicide prevention. The Government's Implementation Plan for the recommendations of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse also committed to the piloting of two out of hours projects. The sites of these two pilot sites are now being finalised and discussions are ongoing to commence the pilots as soon as possible.