Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 6 November 2012
962. Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs in the context of the forthcoming referendum on Children's Rights, if she will outline her commitment to providing sufficient resources to ensure the imprescriptible rights of the child including health and education and the individualised nature of children’s needs are met for children with disabilities; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48071/12]
View answerThe purpose of the proposed Constitutional Amendment is to recognise children in their own right within the Constitution and to acknowledge that each child enjoys rights and deserves certain protections from the State by virtue of the fact that, as a child, they are vulnerable. The Referendum will not address all wider issues that impact on children.
This Referendum is the fundamental backdrop to the wider Programme for Change for Children being pursued by the Government. These reforms focus on intervention to ensure the safety and welfare of children and to ensure that child protection services can respond proportionately to all child protection concerns.
Central to the Programme for Change for Children is the plan to take child protection services out of the HSE and establish a new dedicated Child and Family Support Agency. This Agency will be fully operational in 2013 and will mean a move to a situation where child and family welfare will be the sole focus of a single dedicated agency, overseen by a single dedicated government Department.
The report of the Taskforce, which I set up to advise on how to best organise services for children in this country, was published in July of this year. This Taskforce report maps out an executive agenda for the development of services so that we can do the very best for parents, children and families. Ahead of establishment of the new Agency, an additional €21 million in funding has been made available to the HSE Child & Family Services in 2012. This reflects the priority attached by Government to the reform of child welfare and protection services.
Since February 2011, there has been an increase of 69 whole time equivalents (wte) and 86 individual child and family social workers and an increase in the proportion of children with an allocated social worker.
The question of resource allocation in the areas of health and education are matters for my colleagues the Minister for Health and the Minister for Education and Skills. During the summer Minister of State Kathleen Lynch published the Value for Money and Policy Review of Disability Services. This Review recommended a significant restructuring of the current disability services programme towards a model of person-centred individually chosen supports to enhance the quality of life and well-being of both children and adults with disabilities. This Government is committed to the protection of frontline services for pupils with special educational needs, in order to ensure that every child in the State, regardless of ability, can access education and to ensure that the individual requirements of pupils with special educational needs can continue to be met.
Overall, the matter of resources for services to children will be considered by the Government in the context of the overall budgetary arrangements for 2013. While it is not open to me, in that context, to pre-empt decisions to be made by Government, I would point out that the Government continues to invest very significantly in services for children across a range of areas. The Government will continue this approach, to the greatest possible extent, in dealing with the serious financial challenges facing the country overall.
