”The public should be wary of the information that the HSE has promised will be published tomorrow at the Taoiseach’s urgings to clarify the number of children who have died in the past decade, after contact was made with the childcare and protection services managed by the former Health Boards and by the HSE since 1st January 2005.

“Since the beginning of 2009, I have sought information to ascertain during the previous 10-year period, firstly the number of children who died in care and secondly the number reported to be at risk who had died. On 5th March 2009 in a Dáil Adjournment Debate Junior Minister John Moloney, deputising for Children’s Minister Barry Andrews, stated that 21 children had died in care and information concerning the numbers who have died having been reported to be at risk was being compiled by the HSE. From recent revelations it seems that no serious attempt was made by the HSE to compile the latter information nor was there any serious follow-up on the part of Government or the Minister for Children to obtain it until the publication by Fine Gael in March 2010 of the report into the tragic death of Tracey Fay. We also know that the number given of children who died in care in March 2009 was wrong.

“We know from information available that annually over the past decade thousands of reports of children at risk have not been properly investigated or assessed by the former Health Boards or the HSE. We also know that, where assessments or investigations have taken place, different practices have been applied by the 32 local health offices through which our childcare and protection services operate. There is little doubt that many children who required protection were failed by the State and remained at risk. The enormity of the true extent of that failure will only be known when we are informed definitively, not only of the number of children who have died in care, but also of the number who died in the absence of appropriate intervention following their being reported to be at risk, and the background circumstances of each child.

“It is not only extraordinary but scandalous that this information has not previously been properly collated by Government, the Department of Health and Children, the former Health Boards and the HSE. It is beyond belief that this information was never sought by Government until I raised the issue in the Dáil and that a succession of Ministers for Children did not seek it on their own initiative in the context of their knowledge that both the Health Boards and the HSE were failing to properly ensure the application since 1999 of our Child Protection Guidelines.

“The promise now made that by Friday evening of this week the HSE will make available definitive figures of the number of children who have died in care but will continue to fail to publish details of the numbers who died subsequent to being reported to be at risk is not good enough. It is shameful and a stark illustration of the ongoing failure of the Government to ensure the proper management of our childcare services.”

Ends

“The response of the HSE to date is inadequate. There must be an independent investigation into the care, or lack of it, afforded to this tragic young teenager by the HSE. This should include not only a review of documentation and records held, but also interviews with social work personnel involved including those in managerial positions and with members of his family. Such an investigation should begin immediately and should not be postponed until the Garda investigation is concluded and any prosecution that might ensue.”

“It is no longer satisfactory that we are told by the HSE of its intention to ‘learn lessons’ arising out of what went wrong. There is widespread concern that the HSE has utterly failed to learn lessons from what went wrong in the case of Tracey Fay who died in 2002 and David Foley who died in 2005 and it has failed, and is failing, other children who have either died while in the care system or who have been left at risk without their circumstances being adequately investigated.”

Ends

“It starkly exposes the abject failure of Government to take the steps necessary to ensure the consistent application of the Children First: National Protection Guidelines of 1999. The finding of the Ombudsman against the Office of the Minister for Children that such failure constituted ‘unsound administration’ within the meaning of Section 8 of the Ombudsman for Children Act 2002 confirms that successive Fianna Fáil-led Governments and Ministers for Children have simply paid lip service to child protection.

“The Report also again details the total failure of the HSE to comply with its statutory obligations with regard to the care and protection of children. Findings of ‘unsound administration’ against the HSE yet again raise serious questions about the capacity of the HSE to provide a child care and protection service of appropriate standard and the desirability of the HSE retaining this statutory function. It is particularly shocking, in the light of all of the revelations of the past decade, that the Report documents the continuing failure of the HSE and the Gardaí to operate joint liaison and documentary arrangements in many parts of the State in respect of allegations of child abuse. Immediate action must be taken to address this issue to ensure that the chances of successful prosecutions of those who perpetrate child abuse are not thwarted by such failure of State agencies to comply with the Children First Guidelines.

“It is yet again clear from this Report that radical change and reform is required. It is also clear that neither the Minister for Children nor the HSE have yet recognised the need for both transparency and accountability in our child care and protection services.

“It is noteworthy that a Draft of the Report published today was furnished to the Office of the Minister for Children and the HSE on 15th February 2010 for comment and the Report published today records the responses received. In today’s Report the Ombudsman makes reference to the fact that she knows that the HSE is engaged in undertaking a strategic review of the delivery and management of child care services. Her report makes reference to earlier reports, both published and unpublished over the past 10 years concerning the provision of such services. However, no reference is made by her to the Draft Report published by Fine Gael 10 days ago, prepared by PA Consulting Group for the HSE, dated 1st October 2009 entitled ‘Inspiring Confidence in Children and Family Services: Putting Children First and Meaning it’. This Report constitutes the strategic review of the delivery and management of children and family services to which the Ombudsman makes reference.

“I am calling on the Minister for Children and the HSE to explain whether this Draft Strategic Report was furnished to the Ombudsman for Children to facilitate the work undertaken by her in preparing the Report published today and, if not, why its contents were concealed.  I am also calling on  Mary Harney TD, Minister for Health and Children and Barry Andrews TD, Minister for Children to explain the utter failure of Government to take all necessary action to ensure the uniform implementation across the State of the Children First Guidelines.  Minister Andrews should also explain why the High Level Group established by his Department to facilitate implementation of the Children First Guidelines, having met in 2008, failed to meet at all in 2009.  This failure is justifiably criticised by the Ombudsman for Children.”

Ends

Dail Statements on Child Protection
29 April 2010

Deputy Alan Shatter:  I listened with interest to the Minister of State’s speech. I do not believe that within the limited time available to me I will have an opportunity to address each of the topics raised by him but will try to cover a number of them which are of considerable importance.

The first issue I wish to address is the holding of a children’s rights referendum. It is now nine or ten weeks since the committee chaired by Deputy O’Rourke, of which I was privileged to be a member, published its report. I find it extraordinary that not a single Cabinet Minister has yet gone on record either agreeing with the new proposed constitutional amendment nor has the Government confirmed a date for the holding of a referendum.

In the context of all of the scandals and disasters surrounding our child care services, it is not good enough to speak about prioritising children and children’s rights and needs. We are drowning in a plethora of reports and good intentions. What we need is Government commitment. I call on the Government to state exactly where it stands. Is there a date for the holding of this referendum  which should be held in 2010. Is the wording, worked through over two years on a cross-party basis in a committee attended by the Minister of State, his predecessor and the present Minister and previous Ministers for Justice, accepted? If a referendum is to be held the work undertaken in good faith by members of that committee needs to be explained to the public. The reason for change needs to be understood. The benefits of change, both in the public interest and in the interests of children, need to be clearly understood by those who will vote in a referendum.

Essentially what has happened is that the report has been published and so far buried by Government, with no commitment given. I am very disappointed that the Minister of State yet again,  on the holding of the referendum and on the wording of an amendment, kicked to touch and simply genuflected in its direction and told us there is some sort of internal Government Committee considering it. . I do not believe this is good enough or that this matter is receiving the priority required to ensure we finally extend to children the constitutional protection to which they are entitled and to remove some of the discriminations inherent in our current law with regard to children as a consequence of provisions in our Constitution.

I listened to what the Minister of State had to say about our child care and protection services. I am conscious that he has been in his current position – he may correct me on this if I am wrong – for approximately two years and that he inherited the mess left by his predecessors and the failure of Fianna Fáil in Government over a decade to truly prioritise the needs of children and to ensure we had a proper functioning child care and protection service. When the  Minister of State referred to the HSE and legacy issues,  “legacy” is a nice neat technical word for describing neglect and utter failure over a decade to put in place systems, procedures and structures that ensured the Children First Child Protection Guidelines of 1999 were properly applied.

It is interesting to note a quote, included in the report by Geoffrey Shannon which the Government has accepted, by former Minister of State with special responsibility for children, Deputy Frank Fahey, on the occasion of the publication by the Department of Health and Children of the Child Protection Guidelines 1999 which states that “the guidelines were to be applied consistently by health boards, Government Departments and by organisations which provide services to children” and that they were “to support and guide health professionals, teachers, members of the Garda Síochána and the many people in sporting, cultural, community and voluntary organisations who come into regular contact with children and are therefore in a position of responsibility in recognising and responding to possible child abuse.” That was at a time when it was the health boards who were to administer our child care and protection services.

We then enacted the Health Act 2004 which put in place the HSE. During the Second Stage debate on that Bill on 23 November 2004, the then and current Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, stated:

“This is a once in a generation event. It is our chance to put in place modern effective management to make the best use of these tremendous resources we are applying to health and to get clear value and clear results for that money. To achieve this, we badly need clarity of roles and accountability, political responsibility for the Minister and management responsibility for the management.”

Where are we today? We have a dysfunctional, chaotic child care and protection service, grossly mismanaged with a plethora of reports, one commissioned by the Minister of State’s office acknowledging that at no stage have the Children First, Child Care and Protection Guidelines been uniformly or even properly applied across the country.

The Minister of State has acknowledged that in December 2009 he published a revised form of the child protection guidelines, which appeared quietly on a website. I find it extraordinary, in the context of the recognition that there was a need to revise the guidelines because of the failure of the HSE to properly apply them and the need to bring them up to date because of developments that occurred even in the context of the creation of other agencies in the intervening period, that the Minister would come into this House on the last week in April, more than four months since they were put on his website, and inform us that they would be published and that finally something would be done to ensure the professionals working on the frontline with children are aware of the detail of the new child protection guidelines. How is that prioritising children and ensuring they are given the protection to which they are entitled?

But what I find  particularly questionable is the ongoing, obsessive secrecy with regard to our child care and protection services. Yes, when a family, individual child or children are in trouble or difficulty and require supports, yes of course their names should be kept confidential . Yes, of course, they should have available assistance and services in a manner that does not produce widespread newspaper reports. But we must have a service that is accountable and we must have a service that is transparent. The Minister of State, I think, acknowledges that the reports published into the tragic deaths of Tracy Fay and David Foley are grossly inadequate in the context of accountability and other issues. But the Minister of State was powerless to ensure appropriate reports were published. I do not know what parallel universe they occupy, whether it is it his fault or simply the fault of the HSE, when they could publish a report into the death of Tracey Fay which operates in a universe as if that full report had never been laid before this House. 

But what is even more deplorable, is when it comes to dealing with reports, at least the true story of what happened in the tragic life of Tracy Fay has been told but the true story of what happened to David Foley has been covered up. That is not about protecting his dignity or protecting confidentiality of family members. There is an over-riding obsession within the HSE to protect the reputation of those who have not properly delivered the service expected of them in accordance with their statutory duties and employment responsibilities. The failure to publish is more about  protecting those who have failed to do their jobs properly within the HSE, especially at management level, and who too frequently and tragically ignored recommendations made by hard-pressed, frontline social workers, who feared for the future of these two young people and who have feared for the future of other young people.

I put it to the Minster of State that we must bring accountability and transparency to the process. I am disappointed that in his speech today, the Minister of State omitted any reference of any description to a very important report. It is especially important in the context of the monitoring committee the Minister of State now says has been established. I do not know whether the Minister of State has had sight of this report, whether it is yet another piece of information the HSE has failed to furnish to him or whether this report has been deliberately covered up because it is yet another devastating indictment of the child care and protection services, its structure and management and because it contains substantial recommendations for reform, which the HSE doesn’t want to make public for fear its capacity to implement such recommendations would be monitored and they would be held  accountable. Or maybe it is and I am willing to give the Minister of State the benefit of the doubt in this regard, maybe he knows nothing of this report and he should be informed of it. However, if he is aware of this report the issue of accountability attaches to the Minister of State as well.

The report to which I refer was commissioned by the HSE, prepared by the PA Consulting group and furnished to the HSE in October 2009. The report which I am laying before the House today, because I believe it should be in the public domain, is entitled Inspiring Confidence in Children and Family Services: Putting Children First and Meaning It. That will be a change. This report, commissioned by the HSE and furnished to it last October has not been widely circulated. It has never been published and we do not know what has been done on foot of it to implement the recommendations contained in it. We do not know if anyone is monitoring it. We do not know what part of it’s recommendations have been accepted or rejected. We do not even know whether the Minister of State has seen this report.

I call on the Minister of State to inform the House in his reply today whether he has seen it. If he has seen it, why was it not referred to today in his statement to the House? I also wish to know why Geoffrey Shannon, a person of integrity and decency who has been re-appointed by the Government the child protection rapporteur, was not furnished with this report before he completed his report for 2009, the recommendations of which the Minister of State maintains the Government accepted. Geoffrey Shannon’s report was only laid before the House and made publically available last week on 21 April.

One of the recommendations, on page 68, in Geoffrey Shannon’s report calls for an independent, national review of the current child protection system to be carried out. It recommends that review should involve examination of child protection data, international practice and consultations with stakeholders to identify the primary child protection concerns and areas in need of reform. This was published in April 2010 by the Minister of State. Interestingly, when the Minister of State informed us in his statement today that recommendations made by Geoffrey Shannon had been accepted, he did not state that particular recommendation had been accepted. What’s interesting about that recommendation, presumably made at the end of 2009 and published in April 2010, is it seems that recommendation had already been implemented by the HSE before it was made. Because that’s the job that was done by PA Consulting for the HSE, I don’t know at what cost to the State.

What is  also interesting about that report is that some of the criticisms it makes of the child care and protection service simply replicate what was contained in the review published by the Minister of State’s Department, which was paid for by taxpayers at the end of July in 2008. However, this report dates from October 2009. This report concludes that the structure and model of child care service is grossly inadequate and essentially incapable of providing proper protection for children.

The report emphasises something I have maintained for some time, something I believe is a disgrace and a scandal, which is that  our child care and protection services are not child-centred. Essentially, the primary concern is the delivery system and structure as created by the HSE. I refer to the report, which states, “the needs of children are secondary to the needs of the delivery system”.

Why was no reference made to this report? There is a need to let in the light if we are to have a truly functioning, accountable child care and protection service that can be monitored and where we can determine where improvements have been made, whether defects are being addressed. Such reports as this should be in the public domain and it is extraordinary that this report is not in the public domain.

It’s an  attitude not just within the HSE but within Government as well. On Tuesday this week, I tabled a question to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform calling on him to publish the protocol that exists between the HSE and the Garda Síochána to deal with missing children. The response was to refuse to publish it or furnish it to me on the basis that it was an operational matter between the Garda Síochána and the HSE. Just a protocol, which isn’t even widely known among social workers as to what to do when a child in care goes missing. If you look on the websites of the children’s authorities throughout England there are protocols such as this up on websites as between the police in England and the local authorities responsible for child welfare. It is extraordinary that the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Minister took the view this was something that should not be published. I believe the protocol should be available as well. That protocol has been received by me, although not through the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The report to which I have referred and the protocol are both now publicly available on  Fine Gael’s Let in the Light website, www.letinthelight.ie. I want to say to the Minister of State that we will continue to campaign and do everything possible to ensure we have an accountable and properly transparent child care and protection service, within which the huge gaps and deficiencies are being properly and adequately addressed.

The exercise that went on last Friday, when at 3.00 p.m. or at 3.30 on a Friday evening the HSE put out to the media truncated reports purporting to present the tragedies that occurred in the lives of Tracy Fay and David Foley are a classic example of everything that is wrong with our child care and protection services.  

In the truncated reports they detailed the recommendations that were made and a pretence was made by way of  the HSE’s response to these recommendations and in the statement that they put on their website that everything is fine now, all these issues have been addressed. The HSE equally failed in their responses to make any reference to the huge deficiencies that were detailed last October in this document. We do not know of any timeline for remedying those deficiencies. I know that since this document was published, Mr. Phil Garland has been appointed as national director of children’s services. I am not naive enough to believe that as a result of his appointment, everything is rosy in the garden, as now presented by the HSE to the media late on a Friday evening when they hoped the reports they published would receive little notice and little publicity.

I am aware that for a long time, no one was able to identify who was in charge of the child care and protection services. We need a statutory change. The Minister of State or his successor should be put in charge. When I heard that Mr. Garland had been appointed, I welcomed it because I know of his reputation. However, having observed the manner in which these issues were dealt with last Friday, heard the public comments he made after Fine Gael published the report into the tragic death of Tracey Fay and in the context of  his silence about this report, I fear that his good intentions are being overwhelmed by the appalling ethos that applies within the HSE, which is keep your head down, say nothing, keep everything confidential, don’t let in the light and ensure nobody is ever held accountable for anything that goes wrong. The priority is to preserve the system, not to protect children and that is a priority I want to see changed.

Photo: Irish Times 30th April

Recent HSE Child Protection Reports Ignore Existence of PA Report

A suppressed HSE report from October 2009 on child protection services in the State that has been leaked to Fine Gael, and published on the Party’s www.letinthelight.ie website, confirms a chronic and systemic failure in the management and delivery of child protection services. The detailed PA Consulting Report (“Inspiring Confidence in Children and Family Services: Putting Children First and Meaning It”) has not been published, referred to or commented on by Minister Barry Andrews or, for instance, Geoffrey Shannon who just over a week ago produced the “Third Report of the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection”. 

A detailed summary of the PA Report is attached to this statement, is available at www.letinthelight..ie or is available from the Fine Gael press office.  Copies of the Report were also laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas at lunchtime today.

“PA Consulting were commissioned by the HSE to undertake a Review of the delivery and management of child protection services.  The Review assessed current structures, management and governance and was furnished to the HSE in October 2009.  This Report contains another searing indictment of the HSE’s child protection services. It contains a series of detailed recommendations of substantial importance that don’t appear to have been recognised or acknowledged by subsequent published reports by the HSE.  Damningly, it shows how systems and bureaucracy takes priority over child protection demands under current HSE structures.

“This Report has never been published nor publicly debated.   Many of those who work within our children’s services have never seen it.   The extent to which the HSE intends to implement the recommendations contained in it is unknown.  There is no mechanism in place to publicly monitor any implementation process.  The current service as depicted in the HSE responses to recommendations, as published last Friday in its heavily censored reports into the deaths of Tracey Fay and David Foley, makes no reference to the existence of this Report and is both inconsistent with its content and contains a misleading description of the current state of our childcare and protection services.  The failure of the HSE to publish this important Report is another example of the obsessive secrecy surrounding the management of our child care services.

There are a number of questions that must be answered on foot of the leaking of this Report;

1. Was Minister Andrews aware of the existence of this PA Report and has he read it?
2. Did Geoffrey Shannon know about this Report, and has he read it?
3. Who in the HSE received the Report when it was completed?
4. What actions did the HSE or Minister Andrews take on foot of the production of this Report with its specific recommendations?
5. How much money was spent on producing this Report that appears to have been ignored by all concerned?

“I am calling on the Minister for Children to state if and when he received a copy of this Report and the consideration, if any, he gave to its publication.  Just over a week ago on 21st April 2010 the “Third Report of the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection” (Geoffrey Shannon) was laid before the Dáil and published.   This Report, prepared in good faith by Mr Shannon at the taxpayers expense, addressing current child protection issues not only contains no reference to the Report of the Strategic Review undertaken by PA Consulting but contains a recommendation (at p.68) that:-

“An independent national review of the current child protection system should be carried out.  The review should involve examination of child protection data, international practice and consultation with stakeholders to identify the primary child protection services and areas in need of reform”.

“Clearly Geoffrey Shannon was never furnished with nor is aware of the PA Consulting Report which essentially completed in October 2009 the review he recommended be undertaken in April 2010. This yet again clearly illustrates that in addressing vital issues of child protection at government and state agency level the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing and there is a scandalous lack of accountability, proper communication and transparency.

“The PA Consulting Report of October 2009 has been paid for by the taxpayers of this State and contains recommendations to ensure that we truly develop a child centred service that doesn’t merely pay lip service to putting children first.  As part of Fine Gaels “Let in the Light” campaign to bring accountability, proper communication and greater transparency into the service we are today publishing the Report.

To view the PA Consulting Report  “Inspiring Confidence in Children and Family Services: Putting Children First and Meaning It.”   Click here
To view a summary by Fine Gael of the PA Consulting Report Click here

“I tabled a Dail Question to the Minister for Justice requesting a copy of any existing protocol between An Garda Siochana and the HSE concerning Children Missing from Care.  The Minister did not accede to my request, stating in his response on 27^th April 2010 that “The joint protocol document is an operational document between An Garda Siochana and the HSE, and consequently the issue of my furnishing a copy to the Deputy does not arise”.  This response typifies the veil of secrecy that surrounds issues of child protection in this State under the current Government.

 “I have now obtained a copy of the protocol and it is available to view on Fine Gael’s “Let in the Light” campaign website www.letinthelight.ie “ or click here.

 Ends

DÁIL QUESTION addressed to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Mr. Ahern) by Deputy Alan Shatter for written reply on Tuesday, 27th April, 2010. 

 *  To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform the protocol, if any, in existence regarding communications between An Garda Síochána and the Health Service Executive in relation to children in the care of the HSE who go missing; if copies of any such protocols will be furnished to this Deputy; and if he will make a statement on the matter.     - Alan Shatter 

REPLY.
A joint protocol between An Garda Síochána and the Health Service Executive on missing children was signed by the Garda Commissioner and the Chief Executive of the HSE on 22 April 2009.  The joint protocol sets out the roles and responsibilities of both agencies in relation to children missing from care. 

I am informed by the Garda authorities that an important feature of the protocol is the establishment of a Garda liaison role with the HSE care placements at a local level.  The local liaison role includes a mechanism to identify children in care who are reported missing frequently and to escalate the responsibility for them to an appropriate level of authority in both organisations.

The joint protocol document is an operational document between An Garda Síochána and the HSE, and consequently the issue of my furnishing a copy to the Deputy does not arise.

“One of these reports has of course already been published by Fine Gael and there is a stark contrast between the content of that report and the report published today by the HSE. Fine Gael believes it is important that the true story be told of any young person who dies in care and that there be both transparency and accountability where there is an abject failure to provide to a child or a young person the protection to which they are entitled.

“Whilst the HSE justifies its censoring of crucial information on the spurious grounds that full publication might ‘infringe upon’ the deceased ‘child’s honour and reputation’ the reality is the HSE is essentially concerned with ensuring that no one within the HSE is ever held accountable for that organisation’s failings nor for the failings of the former health boards no matter how disastrous their consequences. The HSE is a deeply flawed, obsessively secretive, dysfunctional agency. Today’s publications yet again illustrate that those in charge utterly fail to appreciate that the HSE has a public duty to account for the manner in which it and the former health boards have delivered public services. Apart from the inadequate nature of these reports it is both scandalous and unacceptable in respect of Young Person A, whose death occurred in 2005, and Young Person B, whose death occurred in 2002, that it has taken until April 2010 for any report of any nature into their deaths to be officially published.

“The report into the death of Tracey Fay (referred to in today’s publication as Young Person B) contains a litany of horrors which is entirely missing from the sanitised report into her death published today by the HSE. If Fine Gael had not seven weeks ago published the report into the death of Tracey Fay there is little doubt that neither of these reports would have been published today in any form.”

Ends 

Note: The full report into the death of Tracey Fay (referred to in today’s HSE publication as Young Person B), as laid by Fine Gael before both Houses of the Oireachtas, is available on www.letinthelight.ie for comparison with the report today published by the HSE.

HSE delays publishing reports on care deaths

By Noel Baker

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

THE HSE was criticised yesterday for the late postponing of the publication of two reports into the deaths of two young people in care over what it called “unresolved legal issues”.

The media was notified before noon yesterday that the reports would be published at 3pm, but less than an hour before the reports were due to be published, the HSE said the press conference would not be going ahead.

In a statement released yesterday evening the HSE said: “While it was our intention to publish reports into the deaths of two children in care today, a number of legal issues remain outstanding and a publication date will now be set for the coming weeks once these matters have been resolved.”

Fine Gael’s children’s spokesman Alan Shatter TD, who last month published details of the death of 18-year-old Tracey Fay in 2000, said the HSE action was “truly bizarre” and cast doubt on its credibility when it came to the eventual publication of any report into the death of a child in care.

He said he assumed the two reports the HSE intended to publish were into the case of David Foley, a 17-year-old who died of a drug overdose in Dublin in 2005, and the official report into the death of Tracey Fay, details of which Fine Gael have already published.

As reported in yesterday’s Irish Examiner, it is understood that the reports fall short of new standards into child death investigation launched by the Health Quality Information Authority (HIQA) last month. It is understood there may also have been issues with the Office of the Minister for Children over the adequacy of the information contained in the reports and how much detail should be put into the public domain.

Mr Shatter said Minister for Children Barry Andrews and the HSE had been in possession of the reports for more than a year without making the findings known.

“It is very difficult to understand what last minute legal issue could have arisen that would have prevented both of those reports being published, when they were originally supposed to be published in October 2009,” he said.

Mr Shatter said the non-appearance of the reports showed the HSE was “incapable of adopting a coherent approach to providing a transparent and accountable childcare and child protection service” and that abbreviated or redacted reports contributed to “the institutionalised cover-up of systematic failures”.

The Children’s Rights Alliance (CRA), said the reports were “long overdue”.

CRA chief executive Jillian Van Turnhout said: “We need to learn about the individual cases but we also need to learn about the systems. We need to know where things went wrong and what corrective action has been taken.”

“This could make a difference to children who are in the system now.”

Last month Mr Andrews established a child death review group, but admitted that the number of child deaths between 2000 and 2010 could be more than the 23 he mentioned in a Dáil debate on the issue.

The Irish Examiner understands that considerably more deaths may actually require independent review, possibly as many as 40 or more.

Two people have been appointed to the review group, but a third, international expert has yet to be appointed to the panel.

Deputy Alan Shatter:  I join Deputy O’Rourke in thanking all those who made presentations to the committee, both written and oral, and the committee’s staff and legal advisers. The Deputy set out clearly the way in which we went about our deliberations. I welcomed the participation of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Smith, during the brief period in which he was Minister of State at the Office of the Minister for Children. The current Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, and I have had several heated exchanges during our sessions. However, it is only fair to say, as Deputy O’Rourke noted, that he came to the meetings, he participated, he was involved with us as we teased out the problems and as we brought about what we believe are cross-party solutions in the best interests of children, which is the primary focus of the committee.

I refer to someone that Deputy O’Rourke omitted, I am sure, by accident, that is, Deputy Brian Lenihan, now the Minister for Finance. When he was the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Minster of State with responsibility for children were ex officio members of the committee. Despite all the pressures he was under as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform during this period, Deputy Lenihan participated actively in the work of the committee, he engaged in the exchanges and, as the Minister who originally launched the Bill in 2007, took a very genuine interest in what we were doing. I regret that the interest shown by Deputy Lenihan was not similarly reflected in the approach shown by the present Minster for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern. He popped into meetings on three or four occasions and I have no wish to do him down by suggesting it was too few meetings. Perhaps he was at two or three more than that, but the truth is he did not participate in a meaningful way in the discussions in the manner that Deputy Andrews has done, in fairness to him. I am not interested in scoring any silly political points. I agree with Deputy O’Rourke that this article is a unique opportunity to effect a major change in our Constitution on an agreed cross-party basis, which reflects today’s values and priorities.

With every new revelation of things that have detrimentally impacted on the lives of children, whether clerical sexual abuse, institutional abuse or the failings of our social services, on a daily not only a weekly basis, the need to reset our constitutional priorities and ethos in a manner that will impact on Government and its agencies and the approach taken by them, especially towards children in trouble or at risk families who have difficulties and need supports such that their children can have good lives within those families, is highlighted. That is very important.

My concern with regard to the report thus far is what I describe as the deafening silence from Government. We started this process from the Opposition side of the House on the basis that the committee sought to bring about an agreement between the Oppositions parties and Government on an appropriate wording for a children’s rights referendum and to change the Constitution. The committee evolved and this resulted in an agreement essentially between members of the committee. The Government is not yet committed to holding a referendum on the wording proposed by the committee.

I do not mean to put the Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, down and I realise he holds the super-duper position as Minister of State who attends at Cabinet meetings, but he is not one of the 15 Ministers with constitutional recognition. Ultimately, he would acknowledge he is not the final decision maker in these things; rather, it is the Cabinet. There has been a deafening silence from all members of Cabinet to the production of this report. No Minister, whether from the Green Party, the Fianna Fáil party or Deputy Harney, who is the Minister for Health and Children and represents no party now but who has been in Cabinet for many years, has stated they agree with this report, they accept the recommendations or that they favour holding a referendum this year. That is the commitment following the work undertaken by everyone on the committee including members of Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party, Sinn Féin and Fine Gael. We should get the required response not for our sake, but for the sake of the children. We must bring about a constitutional sea change. I call on the Cabinet to give to this issue the priority it deserves.

How many more scandals and problems must we have, with regard to the manner in which children have been badly treated, for us to give the same priority to the protection of children and children’s rights as we have given to the disastrous economic issues that we have had to confront? I am not making a political point in the sense of trying to have a go at people for the sake of it, but this is also about politics. When people say to me that this is about children and that we should not politicise it, I do not buy it. The decisions we make, including whether to hold a referendum, to provide better children’s services, to allow the HSE to continue to run dysfunctional child care and protection services or to take those away from the HSE, are political decisions. They are about making political judgments based on one’s values and priorities, the way in which this society works and in which the State agencies function. These are all political decisions.

Having welcomed very much the involvement of Deputy Andrews in this committee, I deplore the conduct of the Green Party. Deputy Paul Gogarty’s picture adorns the report but it came as a surprise to some members of the committee that he was a member at all. Deputy O’Rourke stated that we held 62 meetings. I understood we held 63, but I will certainly defer to her expertise on that matter.

Deputy Mary O’Rourke: It is written down.

Deputy Alan Shatter: Of the 62 meetings, I believe Deputy Gogarty appeared four times and not at all in the years 2009 or 2010. He is the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Education and Science. The article we propose should be included in the Constitution is new and it addresses children’s rights, including the right of children to education, a matter of unique concern to a chairman of an education committee. It touches briefly on the education articles already in the Constitution. If education is about anything it is the future of our children. Essentially, Deputy Gogarty either boycotted the committee or simply did not regard it as sufficiently important to participate in. It is quite extraordinary and I cannot fathom it. It seems the Green Party is more obsessed about saving the corncrake than protecting our children. Perhaps its members are so consumed by rotating proposals that they cannot get their head around other issues of greater importance to the outside world.

I refer to the Minister, Deputy Gormley, who received great headlines in the Irish Times calling for a children’s rights referendum at the time of the publication of the Murphy commission report or the Ryan commission report – I may have the dates confused. I could not fathom the difference between the public presentation and the private contribution of the Green Party on this issue. In addition to calling on the Cabinet to state where it stands on this proposal, I call on the Green Party, as a separate party in Government, to clarify if it has any interest in it. Does it support the report or does it disagree with it? If it disagrees, it should inform us.

Deputy O’Rourke may find it surprising or she may simply find it alarming but there is nothing she said today with which I disagree. No one should suggest this proposal is the panacea to all our problems. There is a great deal we can do to protect children by reforming the way our child care services work and by addressing issues to which we have referred in the House during the course of the past ten days. That can be done without constitutional change. If constitutional change were effected along the lines we propose without these other issues being addressed or reforms introduced, children would not get the care and protection now recognised as their right in this proposal, children’s voices would not be heard and their welfare would not be protected.

We must radically change our approach. The Minister of State should not be sanguine in informing the House or people outside that the world has changed. I have no wish to revisit the tragic cases that we have heard about in recent days and which have been discussed at great length. All one need do is pick up today’s Irish Examiner or Irish Daily Mail, two papers which highlight major deficiencies in our child care system. Both newspapers document the case of a young Chinese girl who came to this country at the beginning of this year but who has since disappeared. She was put in foster care for one day, then a bed and breakfast and there is concern now that she is being sexually trafficked. What has happened to this girl? She is one of more than 500 young people who have come to this country and who have disappeared. If they were Irish there would be a furore about it, but because they are not, this issue is not getting the attentions it deserves. Shocking revelations about continuing failure in our foster care system are disclosed in the Irish Examiner, indicating quite clearly and confirming that assurances given by the HSE about the future vetting and assessment of foster parents were not implemented despite those undertakings being given to HIQA. The Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, needs to take a more dramatic and direct involvement in this than he has to date. I do not want to come into this House to raise the case of more young people who have died because they have been failed by the child care services.

I draw the attention of the Minister of State to the case of a young man of 16 years who is currently the responsibility of Bridge House, Ballyfermot region – care area 5 within the HSE. He is a 16 year old child who has been going through the care system for approximately two and a half years. He is awaiting psychiatric assessment, but he has fallen into an age band where he is not considered either a child or an adult because he is between 16 and 18. He is no longer in the education system, he is becoming drug dependent and he is falling into a street life where he will be exposed to drug running and prostitution. On Tuesday night of this week this young man was left in an Internet café all night by the HSE because there was no suitable location to accommodate him. This young man could potentially be another Tracey Fay.

I ask the Minister of State to intervene to find out what is happening with regard to this young man, and how any 16 year old could be left overnight in an Internet café. This is a troubled young person who needs serious coherent co-ordinated intervention and who is being failed, and emergency social workers who are dealing with this young man are at their wits’ end to get a response from management within the HSE.

I want to give the Minister of State a second example – I can give him in private the names of the individuals to whom I refer. A 17 year old child with severe mental health difficulties, he has been known in the emergency care services for four weeks. A psychiatric assessment took place in St. James’s Hospital a couple of weeks ago but there has been no follow-up. Essentially, this young man is floating between two social work areas, Naas and Tralee, neither of which will take responsibility for dealing with him. There is no communication between the two areas that matters, which makes it impossible to co-ordinate the care response or even to access basic information. He comes from a background in which, it is believed, he has been seriously sexually abused and this young man is exhibiting behaviour that has been a cause of difficulty to social work personnel. Essentially, he is cut loose.

These are two young persons who are, perhaps tonight, still wandering our streets. There is also the case of Danny McAnaspie, a 16 year old boy with severe problems. This young boy, who has disappeared now for eight days, is also in care. This is in the newspapers this morning and I am not revealing any confidences in this House that I should not reveal.

We have a grossly dysfunctional unco-ordinated child protection service which continues up to today to fail our young people. Constitutional amendments are not required to address the tragic difficulties of these young persons. What is needed is to actively resolve the systemic failures and structural difficulties within the HSE that the Minister is struggling to resolve.

I want to see amending legislation brought into this House. I want to see the Health Act 2004, which created the HSE, amended. I want to see the HSE under a direct obligation to furnish information to the Minister of State with responsibility for children and youth affairs. I want the Minister of State with responsibility for children and youth affairs made a senior Cabinet post, not some sort of supernumerary who is sort of half-way in and half-way out. I want to ensure that policy directives from the Minister of State with responsibility for children and youth affairs are implemented by the HSE and that there is accountability where things go wrong.

An Ceann Comhairle:  Deputy Shatter’s time has expired.

Deputy Alan Shatter:  I want to ensure that there is accountability to the extent that persons in managerial positions while supposed to be running a service, co-ordinating a service and protecting our children, first, have the resources to carry out their duties and, second, have the expertise to do so, but where they fail to the extent that young persons lose their lives, or are left in circumstances in which they remain seriously at risk and, ultimately, are the victims of abuse, those persons who take the responsibility for managing the system must be accountable when the system fails.

I welcome the fact that this report has been complete. I thank Deputy O’Rourke for putting up with some of the vigorous debate and exchanges that took place. I thank Deputy Howlin, his colleague, my colleague in Dublin South, Senator Alex White, who was a member of the committee also, and indeed, Deputy Ó Caoláin. We all, I hope, have made some contribution to achieving what I believe to be a very important constitutional proposal, which is balanced and which seeks to ensure that the rights of children are protected while at the same time recognising that the most important people in the lives of any child are the child’s parents, and the parents are the ones who have the primary duty to ensure children are properly cared for and looked after.

However, where there is a parental failure, this amendment ensures that there is proportionate intervention by the State to support families where required, to avoid taking children into care where it can be avoided and to try to ensure that where matters are going wrong they are rectified within the family. Nevertheless, it ultimately recognises that the State has a duty that where children are totally failed by parents and need to be protected, the State will intervene.

I await a response from the Cabinet to accept this proposal. I would hope, if there is not a referendum on this issue in June of this year, that by the very latest we have it in October next. I ask the Minister of State with responsibility for children and youth affairs, when he speaks on this debate, to advise this House where matters stand with the Government, and whether we can expect that the referendum will take place this year and whether it will take place with the wording proposed by the committee being put to the people.