I thank the joint committee for the invitation to attend before it today. I take this opportunity to wish all members of the joint committee and Chairman, Deputy Denis Naughten, all the best in their work. I look forward to constructive engagement with the joint committee. I know that people are supportive of the new Department and interested in its work. It is great that so many Deputies and Senators here today. I thank them for attending today's meeting.
I welcome the opportunity to come before the joint committee to outline my work to date, which is what I have been asked to do, in regard to the establishment of the new Department of Children and Youth Affairs and to set out my priorities in this regard. As Minister, I am determined that our children's interests will be objectively assessed and passionately articulated within Government. We have seen in the past the enormous individual and social cost of ignoring the rights of children. By declaring ourselves committed to a new approach founded upon the interests and potential of the youngest members of our society, we are investing in our future social and economic prosperity. I stress that this is about our social and economic aspects as well as the personal lives of our young children. We are investing in the most precious natural resource in the country, our young people.
To achieve this my Department must have a wide-ranging perspective on the many social and economic policies across Government which relate to children. I will work with colleagues across Government to achieve a policy framework which is in the interests of children. We see in an increasing number of areas, including health, that a whole of Government approach is necessary to achieve results. The new Department brings together policy and programme functions in a wide range of areas. For the information of the committee I will list them, as a number of people have said they did not realise the wide range of work to be done by the Department. They include child protection and welfare; children's and youth participation; youth affairs and youth work; early childhood care and education; family support; the Irish youth justice service; the National Educational Welfare Board; and adoption and fostering. These are the areas on which we currently focus but the Department's role will develop over time.
The Department was formally established at the start of June on foot of a Government order which also transferred a significant range of functions to me as Minister. Further transfer of powers will be required by primary legislation and subsequent Government orders, beginning with the Child Care (Amendment) Bill which is to be reintroduced to the Dáil on Report Stage next week. Transfer of functions currently resting with the Ministers responsible for health and justice, respectively, will follow, including in particular legislation to establish the child and family support agency, on which I will comment later. My new Department is based in Mespil House and staff have already begun moving. It is hoped to have most of this work completed this month. The Government last week appointed Mr. Jim Breslin as the Department's first Secretary General and I am delighted he has joined me this afternoon. Also with me is Ms Michelle Clarke, who is a specialist child protection adviser and social worker.
The creation of a new Department is challenging, as Members will realise and accept. I am pleased to have been able to make significant progress to date which has enabled me to lay strong foundations for the substantive work of progressing my agenda as Minister. Central to this agenda will be delivering on the commitments contained in the programme for Government, and prime among these is the children's referendum.
For the benefit of this committee let me reaffirm the Government's absolute commitment, as provided for in the programme for Government, to bring before the people a proposed amendment of the Constitution to strengthen the protection of the rights of children along the lines recommended by the all-party Oireachtas committee. Our Constitution strikes a balance between personal rights, the status of the family, the rights and duties of parents and the power of the State as guardian of the common good. My aim is simple. It is to bring forward an holistic and composite response to the long-identified need to strengthen our Constitution to copperfasten children's rights and safeguard their well-being. I have already met people involved in the different sectors in our country related to children, such as education, health and child care. They all support that need and at the same time support families.
We will take our time and get it right, and I hope that early next year, when we bring our comprehensive amendment before the people, we will have the support of all parties. The referendum will give constitutional protection to our children, but the Constitution or a change to the Constitution will not alone protect children from the abuse which has been revealed in recent years or abuse which continues to come to light.
It is my intention to ensure every report into this national shame is published. I advise the committee that in conjunction with my colleague, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, and barring any further legal complication, we propose to begin by publishing next week the report of the commission of investigation into the diocese of Cloyne. The HSE audit of Catholic Church dioceses is ongoing and I expect to receive a report in the autumn, and it will be published. I also expect to receive shortly a report from the independent review group on child deaths. Unfortunately, as members know, deaths have occurred of children in care and an independent review group is examining the issue, with Ms Norah Gibbons and Mr. Geoffrey Shannon doing the work. I have no doubt the committee will also examine that report.
These reports, and those that have been published to date, shine a light on some horrific episodes from even our recent past, where as a State and society we failed in our moral duty to cherish and protect our nation's children. My role as Minister is to seek that never again will these evils be countenanced. I will be expecting and demanding that all organisations working with children will accept fully and without question their fundamental responsibilities with respect to child protection. There will be no exceptions or exemptions. However, cognisant of the bitter legacy of past failings, the State, and I as Minister, must ensure robust systems for the implementation and oversight of child protection practices are in place and are complied with.
Central to this will be implementing the recommendations of previous reports, in particular the Ryan report. The country was horrified when the Ryan report was published, given the sad and horrific stories contained within it of child abuse. As Minister I have personally taken the chairmanship of the Ryan report implementation group, and I have also opened the membership to include the Children's Rights Alliance, an umbrella group working with children. I felt it important that we had an outside perspective on the progress of the implementation of the Ryan report. I chaired a meeting of the group this week and I can advise the committee that the second annual implementation report will be laid before the Oireachtas in coming weeks.
I am pleased to see real progress being made on the recommendations and I believe that this work, in particular my plans to bring forward new legislation to support the Children First national guidance, will leave a lasting legacy when it comes to child protection in Ireland. I will be publishing new Children First national guidance very shortly, along with an associated implementation framework prepared by the HSE. That is a very important element as we have had guidelines before which were implemented inconsistently. It is important for us to have guidelines for the protection of children that will be implemented in a very cohesive and consistent way throughout the country. The HSE is also determined that this happens. When they are published it will be alongside an implementation framework which will go into the detail of how the work should be done. I will also be outlining further details with respect to the planned legislation, on which we have made much progress. I will make those announcements shortly.
My Department, in conjunction with the Department of Justice and Equality, is also finalising the heads for the national vetting bureau Bill. The Chair is aware that this legislation has had a difficult preparation but we are very close to finalising the heads for the Bill. Once submitted to the Government, the legislation will be produced.
I will advise the committee on some of the details of the Ryan implementation plan. Additional funding of €24 million has been provided to date to implement the plan, and the initial allocation of €15 million remains in the allocations of the relevant agencies in the current year. A further allocation of €9 million has also been made to provide for implementation of actions specified for 2011. The HSE national service plan for 2011, which the committee will also consider, contains a set of actions for implementation this year, along with actions not completed in 2010. Each of the actions is fully funded and underpinned by approval to recruit the necessary staff. By the end of this year we will have 260 of the 270 proposed additional social workers recruited. People had a great interest in that issue, and I should emphasise that these are additional posts rather than the back-filling of other vacancies, which is proceeding separately. I had confirmation of that this week.
Some of our most at-risk children, who have been in detention and special care units, have not had the sort of assessment they needed as there is no comprehensive assessment system in place for these children. I was very concerned about that area and I am pleased that we are now filling 29 posts to deliver assessment and therapeutic services for these children in high support and special care units, as well as children in detention. The professionals will play a key role in addressing the therapeutic needs and best interventions for these young people. These young children have a multiplicity of needs, with many ending up in special care or detention. It is critical for their needs to be assessed properly with the right interventions made. Obviously residential care is costly. It is also very difficult for these children and young people. If we wish to ensure the best plans are laid out for these young people, they must be assessed properly. This was one of the recommendations of the Ryan report. These posts will be in place and assessment will be available to those centres.
After-care is a concern for many members of the committee. A national after-care policy is being developed by the HSE, there is an after-care implementation group in place and ten additional aftercare worker posts are in the process of being filled. Obviously, young people who have been in care do not stop needing help and attention on the day they reach their 18th birthday. We must provide ongoing support. We also have money for the national counselling services as outlined in the report before members.
Another area that requires more attention is the out-of-hours service. There is a crisis intervention service in the Dublin region on a 24-hour basis, seven days a week, but problems have been identified around the country with the lack of this service. There is a new emergency placement service whereby if a child needs a place of safety, there is a single phone number that gardaí can call to make contact with a foster care company which has foster families on call and available nationwide. Clearly, that is for places of safety in an emergency. It will ensure there will not be social admissions to hospitals or Garda station facilities. This is something I have been concerned about in the past, and members of the committee will share that concern. It is important that the practice of young people who are in need of care being admitted to a prison, hospital or psychiatric hospital setting cannot and will not continue. There are two pilot projects involving out-of-hours social work services in Donegal and Cork. These pilot projects are now up and running and will inform the future development of out-of-hours social work services.
It is a priority of the Government to establish a new child and family support agency, to ensure quality services are available for those who need them and to achieve the best outcomes for families and children. It is due to the long-standing concerns about what has been happening in child protection and welfare services generally that we will establish the new child and family support agency. It will be separate from the HSE and will report directly to my Department through its chief executive. This agency will be an important enabler through which I am determined to drive the delivery of integrated child and family services across the State. This is a major piece of work that will not happen overnight. However, we have begun work on it. The agency will play a critical role in delivering quality, accountable services for children in care and in supporting children and families within the community.
As many members will know, this country has not had a good record of agencies working well together. We need to address that to get the best value from the work that is being done and to give the best service to families. Often, as we have seen in a number of case reviews, there has been a multiplicity of workers and agencies working with the same family but the work has not been co-ordinated as it should be. At times, this has put even extra pressure on families. That is something that must be changed. There are very good examples throughout the country of good inter-agency work. Members will have seen it in their local areas. There has been a huge improvement in this area but more work is required.
This will be helped by the establishment of the children's services committees, on which I can elaborate further if members wish. The concept is to establish a child services committee in every county, through which all the agencies working in a county will have regular meetings together to co-ordinate the work being done with children and families to ensure there is the necessary co-operation and inter-agency planning and work to deliver services. This is part of the reform agenda anyway, but it is also the right thing to do to get the best outcomes and provide the best services.
I have outlined other areas in which my Department is involved. The early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme is a huge support to families throughout the country. It operates at a cost of €166 million in 2011, and 95% of all children of the qualifying age are participating. I would love this scheme to be developed further. Obviously, however, I must operate within the financial constraints under which the rest of the Government is operating. I would like more work to be done for children with special needs and if finance is available, it is an area on which I would hope to see further development. It would make sense in the long run, be good for children and would support parents. In fact, it would probably save on some of the demands for other services.
We must move to a position where children who have particular difficulties receive earlier assessment. I believe the ECCE scheme will help in that regard and ensure that when children move on to primary school, the school is aware of the difficulties the children are experiencing and the type of services they need. Let us take the example of communication disorders. One in three, one in four and one in five children have sight, hearing or speech problems. Everybody knows the demands this places on the child and the family. If we can reach a point where there is early intervention and support, which I believe the ECCE scheme can provide, it will be invaluable to the children concerned. We are committed in the programme for Government to investing in early, targeted childhood education for disadvantaged children. There are three projects under way at present. We hope to find the best practice in that regard, which we will transfer to other areas, resources permitting.
We will also be working on the national children's strategy. I invite members of the committee to contribute to the development of the strategy. That work is to set high level objectives in this area across all Departments. This will be a very important mechanism for achieving integration and collaboration from the policy level to front-line services. I hope we can use the strategy to respond to emerging issues which I have identified as priorities. Member will be aware, for example, that the latest research emerging from the longitudinal study on children shows very worrying data that more than a quarter of all three-year-olds are either overweight or obese. These findings pose a serious challenge which requires a determined and multi-faceted response. The national children's strategy will provide the perfect opportunity to address such high-level objectives. There are other issues as well, such as child poverty and the impact of consumerism on children.
I have given the committee a detailed description of the work being done in the Department on youth affairs and youth work. Members will see the need for a quality standard framework and a national youth policy.
Inter-country adoption is another responsibility of my Department. The Adoption Authority of Ireland was established in November 2010. The authority has responsibility for the direct operational implementation of legislation and Government policy. I have given the committee some details in this regard which might be helpful. I asked members of the authority to visit Vietnam and gather information on how Vietnam intends to implement the Hague Convention and to explore the progress Vietnamese authorities have made in addressing the concerns that were raised previously. It is now a matter for the Vietnamese authorities to decide if they wish to work with Ireland. It is my hope, and indeed expectation, that they will indicate a willingness to work with Ireland. The report I have received from the members of the authority who visited Vietnam shows that significant progress has been made in that country. I am hopeful that, once the Hague Convention is signed and we begin working again with the Vietnamese authorities, there will be a changed situation. It would be a great relief to the many couples who are waiting to hear positive news about Vietnam. I have also given members of the committee some details about Russia and Ethiopia, so I will not elaborate on them now.
The Irish youth justice service is also under my Department. My focus is on ensuring the quality and effectiveness of the services provided by the projects. There are 100 Garda youth diversion projects. These are community-based crime prevention initiatives which seek to divert young people from becoming involved in anti-social and-or criminal behaviour. They are very important initiatives dealing with a group of young people who need a little help if they are not to follow a criminal path and end up in prison. I hope the Irish Youth Justice Service will work with the children's services committees at a local level as well. The National Educational Welfare Board also comes under the Department but I will not go into the detail because it is available to members.
I hope my presentation demonstrates the vast range of policy functions coming under the new Department. I see the creation of this Department as an opportunity. By bringing together all agencies and policy areas, we can transform the way we plan, design and deliver services for children, young people and families. We can break down barriers, promote collaboration, deliver integrated services and secure efficiencies and value. Improving the outcomes, the quality of life and opportunity for all children and young people in Ireland is the goal and the raison d’être of the Department. Establishing a Department of Children and Youth Affairs at this point is a value statement by this Government.
