In the context of this Estimate, which is just a technical mechanism to extend the youth brief formally to the Office of the Minister for Children, the speech of the Minister states the provision is to cater for the expanded role of the Office of the Minister for Children to include the transfer of functions and duties in respect of youth work. It also states the transfer of these functions to the Office of the Minister for Children will facilitate the strategic development of a more integrated, cohesive and effective approach to the needs of children and young people. For many years, I campaigned inside and outside this House for the establishment of a Department for children and a Minister for children.
I am aware there are several people in the Department and wider Civil Service with great expertise in this area and for whom I have a great deal of admiration. I do not want anything I say to be taken as a personal slight against them. I have grave concerns over the capacity of this Department, under the legal structure according to which it is operating, to fulfil the function and responsibility that is politically stated to vest therein. That is not to criticise the staff of the Department. We do not have an integrated, cohesive and effective approach to children's issues. I am not convinced the transfer of additional powers to this Department will provide it in respect of youth issues. I would much rather the Department had the legal capacity to exercise the function to cover children's issues that has been politically portrayed as being possessed by it.
I will ask two or three questions and draw attention to some matters to indicate what I am talking about. The Children First guidelines for the protection of the welfare of children at risk have been in place since 1999. It is blindingly obvious that we are not providing a uniform service across the State to protect children at risk and that, if anyone reports a child at risk to the HSE today or tomorrow, he or she cannot be guaranteed that the matter will be investigated properly. This is not simply an issue of there being an inadequate number of social workers, as some might wish to portray the matter. A considerable difficulty arises because social workers are not being given the training they require. Will the Minister state whether this is a question of resources for existing social workers?
It is absolutely clear that there are completely different approaches to child protection issues depending on the part of the country in which one lives and the HSE area that intervenes therein. In this context, the report published by the Office of the Minister for Children at the end of July confirms what I have been saying for some considerable time in that it refers to the absence of consistency in the delivery of child welfare and protection services across the country. More important, it refers to the absence of any standards against which the delivery of services can be benchmarked and monitored. What is the Office of the Minister for Children doing to ensure uniformity of services? Why are there considerable discrepancies in the delivery of services a decade after the Children First guidelines were issued? Does the Minister of State with special responsibility for children propose to put in place, within the Department, any real-time, modern, technical mechanism for monitoring the number of reported cases of children at risk of abuse or neglect and the number on the waiting list for full assessments? Are there any means whereby the Department can monitor the performance of the HSE in responding to reported cases of children at risk? I believe there are none.
Does the Minister know how many hundreds of files are gathering dust on shelves of different sections of the HSE that record reports of children at risk or awaiting a full assessment by a social worker to determine whether they require some form of family intervention or an application to be taken into care or to be placed in fosterage? Why is there no system in place ten years after the publication of the Children First guidelines?
In the context of the Office of the Minister for Children being given expanded functions, can the Minister explain the response I received to a very simple parliamentary question on 2 December asking the Minister of State responsible for children to explain the function of what has been described to me as the child protection notification system established by the HSE, the difficulties experienced therewith, the time for which it has been in operation and its cost to date? Why was the Office of the Minister for Children not able to furnish this information? I was informed the question related to the management and delivery of health and social services, which are the responsibility of the Health Service Executive, which was to write to me. If the Department has any functions, its most important is to ensure that the child protection services are working efficiently and have the capacity to monitor efficiency. The Department does not know how efficiently it functions, nor whether there is a child protection notification system in place. I understand a system was put in place that has proved to be unworkable and which cost a very large sum. What is happening in this area and how much public funding has been wasted? What is to happen this year and next year in the context of the Estimates, bearing in mind the relevant Supplementary Estimate for this year? The report published in July highlighted the necessity of ensuring proper information systems are in place. Is there any current financial allocation for this?
At the beginning of July, the HSE informed me, in a reply to a parliamentary question, that part of its remit was to start developing some form of information system in the second half of 2008. When I asked the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, with responsibility for children, Deputy Barry Andrews, about the progress made in establishing a fully integrated national communications system as recommended in the national review of compliance with Children First guidelines, he replied he did not know and would find out from the HSE.
I appreciate the select committee is dealing with a nominal Estimate to technically and formally legally extend to the Department of Health and Children the power to call itself the Department for children and youth affairs. I am not criticising the departmental personnel. My concern is, because of the legal structure under which the HSE was created which is the responsibility of the Minister, Deputy Mary Harney, the Department is working blindly and has its hands tied behind its back.