Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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730. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if child protection social workers will operate a service 24 hours a day seven days per week under the remit of the newly established Child and Family Agency. [1676/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Child and Family Agency (CFA) provides a range of services aimed at addressing emergency situations in the area of child welfare and protection. In the main, these emergency situations arise out of hours.

At present out-of-hours emergency services for children at risk in the greater Dublin area are provided through the Crisis Intervention Service (CIS). Outside the greater Dublin area the service is provided through the Emergency Place of Safety Service (EPSS).

The Crisis Intervention Service provides out-of-hours emergency social work assistance to young people aged under 18 years. Where necessary, the social worker arranges for a foster care or residential placement for the child until the next working day. The service operates across the greater Dublin area (Counties Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow). Referrals are made by service providers outside of normal working hours e.g. Gardaí, hospital and ambulance service personnel.

The Emergency Place of Safety Service (EPSS) operates outside the greater Dublin area and allows Gardaí to access an emergency placement for children found to be at risk out-of-hours. This service involves the placement of a child in a family setting until the next working day, when the local social work service assumes responsibility for the case. As part of this service Gardaí have access to advice and information from a social work off-site resource which is provided on a contract basis. The purpose of this service is to provide placements to children where Gardaí have removed children from their homes under Section 12 of the Child Care Act, outside of normal working hours, on an emergency basis or where a young person presents themselves as needing care and protection.

There has been a steady increase in the number of calls to the CIS and EPSS and an increase in the number of children placed since its commencement. In 2012 there were 712 referrals with 522 children placed in care and in the period to the end of the third quarter of 2013 there were 580 referrals and 432 children placed in care.

An Emergency Out of Hours Social Work service was piloted in Cork and Donegal. It is intended to expand this service in 2014 to include additional urban and rural areas and discussions are underway with stakeholders in this regard. The proposed service is to operate on the basis of a joint, national protocol between the CFA, an Garda Síochána and an external provider.