Dan Neville
Question:235 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Health and Children the system for setting and monitoring child protection standards to promote examples of good practice and to inquire into serious failures of practice. [5170/98]
Written Answers. - Child Protection.
As the Deputy will be aware the Child Care Act, 1991, has been operational in full since the end of 1996. The purpose of this legislation was to update the law in relation to the care of children, particularly children who have been assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, sexually abused or who are at risk.
The main provisions of the Act are: the placing of a statutory duty on health boards to promote the welfare of children who are not receiving adequate care and protection; strengthening of the powers of the health boards to provide child care and family support services; and improved procedures to facilitate immediate intervention by health boards and the gardaí where children are in serious danger; revised provisions to enable the courts to place in the care of or under the supervision of health boards children who have been assaulted, ill-treated, neglected or sexually abused or who are at risk; introduction of arrangements for the inspection and supervision of pre-school services; and revised provisions in relation to the registration and inspection of residential centres for children. There are also four sets of details regulations under the Act.
The establishment of a social services inspectorate is a priority for the Government. It has been decided to proceed with the inspectorate on an administrative basis initially and it will be located within the Department of Health and Children. The existing general powers of the Minister for Health and Children and specific powers provided in section 69 of the Child Care Act, 1991, will underpin this administrative arrangement.
As the Deputy will be aware, each health board, under the Child Care Act, 1991, is the body with statutory responsibility for child care and protection. Local complaints procedures already exist and some health boards have had independent investigations conducted where there were serious concerns about the handling of specific child abuse cases.
Dan Neville
Question:236 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Health and Children if he will provide details of the consultative process with relevant staff and services in each health board with the objective of maximising its organisational capacity, in order to accurately identify children at risk in each region and to intervene effectively to eradicate or to reduce the degree of risk to which children are exposed. [5171/98]
Under section 3 of the Child Care Act, 1991, it is a function of every health board to promote the welfare of children in its area who are not receiving adequate care and protection and in performing this function a health board is obliged to "take such steps as it considers requisite to identify children who are not receiving adequate care and protection and co-ordinate information from all relevant sources relating to children in its area".
In implementing the Child Care Act, 1991, all health boards have carried out extensive training programmes for staff. In addition, each health board has published or is in the process of publishing its own child protection guidelines which conform to the national guidelines issued by my Department. These guidelines were drawn up by the health boards in consultation with relevant staff groups. The purpose of the guidelines is to protect vulnerable children by providing relevant staff with guidelines on the detection and inter-agency management of situations where abuse or neglect is evident or suspected. The Deputy may be aware that I have recently established a working group to review the national child abuse guidelines.