Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 April 2014
696. Deputy Finian McGrath asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the position regarding provisions in the Children First Bill 2014 for children sexually abused (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19212/14]
View answerThe aim of the Children First Bill 2014 is to improve the care and protection of children by raising awareness of child abuse and neglect. The Children First Bill provides for a number of key child protection measures, as follows:
- A requirement on mandated persons to report child protection concerns to the Child and Family Agency;
- A requirement on mandated persons to assist the Child and Family Agency in the assessment of a child protection risk, if requested to do so by the Agency;
- A requirement on organisations providing services to children to comply with best practice in child protection as set out in the Children First Guidelines and to produce an organisational-specific Child Safeguarding Statement; and
- Statutory arrangements to promote cross-sectoral implementation and compliance with Children First.
The Bill will form part of a suite of child protection legislation which already includes the Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Offences against Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012 and the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act, 2012.
The correspondence referred to by the Deputy refers to the provision of support services for the survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The focus of the Children First Bill is to make best safeguarding practice the cultural norm for anyone working with children; therefore the broader issue of support services for abuse survivors does not directly come within its scope. I understand that the provision of adult counselling services for survivors of childhood sexual abuse is overseen by the National Counselling Service (NCS), which is under the remit of my Ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health. As per the recommendations of the Ryan Report, the NCS received an additional €2 million in funding to purchase therapy services to deal with increased demand following the publication of that report.
However, the existing Children First Interdepartmental Group [which will, under the Children First Bill, be put on a statutory footing] has a specific responsibility to promote compliance and consistency of implementation of both the Bill and the Children First Guidance. The Group is also a forum where members can raise child protection issues of general concern, or with a cross departmental or cross sectoral dimension.
The Group has completed a benchmark phase of establishing structures, mechanisms and activities in place within each sector to support and drive the implementation process. In July 2013 the Government approved the publication of each Departmental Children First Sectoral Implementation Plan on the relevant Department websites. A key priority of the Group is the development of appropriate reporting mechanisms in respect of the implementation of Children First within each sector and the assurance arrangements to monitor implementation and compliance.
