Two weeks ago I addressed the joint committee on the establishment of the new Department of Children and Youth Affairs, the range of policy areas and programmes coming under the Department, and my priorities as Minister. I thank members of the committee for their interest and contributions on that day.
I am happy to be here to outline to members of the Select Committee on Health and Children the Revised Estimates 2011 provision which it is proposed will be made in respect of Vote 43 for the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.
On Vote 41 in respect of the former Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, with the setting up of the new Department of Children and Youth Affairs Vote 41 is being retired. However, expenditure was incurred under this Vote for the first five months of the year and, consequently, the formal approval of the committee and the Dáil is required.
It is proposed that Vote 43 will have a total allocation in 2011 of €221,863,000. It is clear from the framework of Vote 43 that it brings together a range of functions which were previously located in a number of Departments as I explained to the committee when I was here previously. The bringing together of these functions and agencies into one Department for children and young people will provide clarity of purpose and coherence in structures, both of which will be essential to achieving the priority outcomes which I have set for the next five years and which we discussed also.
I will give members the technical background on the way the Votes are being organised. Vote 43 has been prepared under the guidance of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Government accounting conventions mean the period for which provision is included is determined by whether the Votes, from which functions and associated expenditure are transferring into the new Department, are being retired.
Expenditure is therefore transferring from two Votes that are being retired, namely, Vote 41, which is the former Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, and Vote 27, which was under the former Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs. In both cases, the 2011 provision in Vote 43 relates to the period from June to end December 2011, that is the period from which the Department was formally established following the transfer of functions order. Expenditure for the first five months of this year is shown in Votes 27 and 41. This means the figures in respect of the relevant subheads in Vote 43 relate to a partial year, equivalent to seven months of expenditure. The 2010 provisional outturn figures are not included in Vote 43. Again, that expenditure is shown in the two Votes being retired.
The position in regard to functions transferring from Votes not being retired is simpler. The two Votes concerned are Vote 26, which is the Department of Education and Skills, and Vote 39, the Department of Health. A full 2011 provision is included in Vote 43 in respect of expenditure transferring from these two Votes. In addition, an Estimate for the 2010 provisional outturn related to these activities is included in Vote 43 for the relevant subheads.
I acknowledge that these differences in treatment introduce complexity in the presentation and interpretation of the figures. However, the footnotes to the Vote set out the position in regard to each subhead. I want to explain to members that the approach has been dictated by Government accounting conventions and is consistent with the approach adopted across all departmental Estimates where there are changes on foot of the redrawing of ministerial responsibilities. That is the explanation for the particular presentation on the figures.
I can confirm that the amounts being transferred to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs from other Departments take into account the movement of staff, the associated non-pay costs and the cost of agencies, schemes and other expenditure being transferred.
I must also point out that there will be further functions transferring to the Department, for example, the Irish Youth Justice Service, IYJS, later this year and pending completion of that process, the funding allocated in respect of that area remains within Vote 19, the Department of Justice and Equality. In addition, and this is an important point, responsibility for child welfare and protection services, which currently rests with the Health Service Executive, Vote 40, will transfer in due course to a new statutory agency to be established under the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, as set out in the programme for Government.
Transfer of these functions will be facilitated by further legislation and subsequent Government transfer of functions orders, beginning with the Child Care (Amendment) Bill, which was re-introduced to the Dáil on Report Stage last week, is due to go back before the Seanad tomorrow and will finish in the Dáil this week.
On the Irish Youth Justice Service, it will be a priority for me to oversee the development of a follow-up national youth justice strategy in tandem with the new national children's strategy. All of the civil servants currently working in the Irish Youth Justice Service will relocate to my Department. I believe there is considerable scope to develop better policy and operational arrangements with other areas falling under my Department related to children at risk, in particular the HSE child welfare services.
I envisage continued reform of detention schools with further improvements in service delivery, operational arrangements and support services across the three schools. For the information of the committee, there are 100 Garda youth diversion projects in place as community-based, multi-agency crime prevention initiatives which seek to divert young people from becoming involved in anti-social or criminal behaviour. These are central to the youth justice strategy. The Irish Youth Justice Service has undertaken an analysis of youth diversion projects, evaluating them in the context of local youth crime patterns, the profile of young people who offend and the available evidence regarding best practice and improvements sought by the projects. Work is under way to implement the recommendations of this report.
On the child and family support agency, I have initiated planning for the establishment of a dedicated new child and family support agency. In due course legislation will be brought before the House to establish this agency. The agency will take over the child welfare and protection services of the HSE and will be allocated an appropriate amount of funding, staff and resources from within the HSE.
I am also considering what other operational responsibilities from within those assigned to my Department might complement the HSE's child welfare and protection services. Work has begun to define the exact service scope and corresponding resource requirements for the agency. This is quite a big task and will take some time to complete but it is estimated that up to €600 million of the HSE's current allocation will be examined in this exercise. The establishment of the new child and family support agency, which will report directly to my Department, through its chief executive officer, will be a key objective for the Department and I hope to see progress towards this goal over the coming months. In the meantime, these resources continue to be located within Vote 40 as part of the health group of Votes and I continue to work closely with my colleague, the Minister for Health, in the context of his overall responsibility at this point for this Vote.
Today I will lay the second progress report on the Ryan report implementation plan before the Houses of the Oireachtas. It will be available in the Library. The rate of progress is increasing and, in line with the programme for Government, I am committed to delivering on all the commitments over the timeframe of the implementation plan. As I said to the committee previously, I have invited the Children's Rights Alliance to have an outside member on that committee and I will chair the committee.
I can advise the committee that additional funding of €24 million has been provided to date to implement the plan. The initial allocation of €15 million remains in the allocations of the HSE and HIQA in the current year. A further allocation of €9 million has also been made to provide for the implementation of actions specified for 2011
I advise the committee that 260 of the 270 proposed additional social workers will be recruited by the end of this year and I emphasise that these are additional posts. Recruitment to back-fill other vacancies as they arise is proceeding separately. The allocation for the recruitment of these social workers is outside any moratorium and their recruitment will proceed. The HSE, in line with Ryan report recommendations, is currently filling 29 posts to deliver assessment and therapeutic services for children in high support and special care units, and for children in detention. It is essential that we have proper assessment facilities available for the vulnerable children in these services. The posts are a combination of psychology, speech and language, social work and psychiatry. These professionals will play a very valuable role in assessing the therapeutic needs and facilitating the best interventions for these most vulnerable children.
Another recommendation of the Ryan report implementation plan relates to aftercare. As I have often said, and I am aware members of the committee have also made this point, young people in care do not suddenly cease needing support on their 18th birthday. I am happy to report that work is under way on the development of a national aftercare service in line with the new national aftercare policy developed by the HSE. That work is currently being planned and organised by an aftercare implementation group. Ten additional aftercare worker posts are also now in the process of being filled and their contracts will identify a need for flexible working hours. That should make a real difference along with action on the ground to ensure there is proper implementation, which will ensure we have a better national aftercare service than was previously available to young people leaving care. A number of other actions are being taken under the Ryan report implementation plan, which will be available to colleagues later today.
Another area covered in the Estimates before the members is that of early childhood education. My Department has responsibility for a number of major early childhood care and education programmes which are provided for under subhead B. Such provision represents high quality investment in child care and there is also a programme to help low income parents with the costs of quality child care. We also have the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme in which 95% of children participate in the year before they commence primary school. That is a major area of policy development and support for social and education equality.
I discussed with members of the committee previously how I would like the ECCE scheme to develop. There is considerable scope for developing it and the Government is committed to maintaining it. I would like it to be developed whereby, for example, we could work more with children with special needs. As a universal programme, it is providing a very important support to children and to their parents. It is also a place where work on the Government's new literacy and numeracy can be done, and there can be joined-up thinking between the Departments of Education and Skills and my Department on that.
Education welfare provision, which comes under subheads E and I, has an allocation of €40 million. To save time I will not go into the detail of that entire subhead. We are committed to breaking the cycle of disadvantage for children who have problems with school attendance, non-school attendance or school refusal. The work done by the education welfare section of the Department follows up those issues.
The Family Support Agency has an allocation of €32 million and operates at community level to support children and their families. Early family support is extremely important and we are committed to early intervention. It makes a difference to children's lives and it can ensure that children do not come into care. We have to intervene to support families at the right time. There is a substantial allocation for that work and a commitment to maintaining it.
The area of youth affairs has an allocation of €60 million to provide non-formal education and developmental opportunities for young people. The focus is particularly on young people between the ages of ten and 21 and on those who are socially or economically disadvantaged. I have already said to the committee that we will be evaluating those programmes and streamlining some of the funding subheads.
Another area that receives funding from the Department is that of adoption. The Adoption Authority receives funding to allow it to do its work. It is an independent statutory body charged with implementing the Adoption Act 2010, which commenced in November 2010 when Ireland's ratified the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption.
Vote 43 includes provision for a broad range of functions and programmes which include early intervention projects and a programme of children's research. It is very important that we are doing this research. It is the first time there has been a longitudinal study on Irish children and the kind of data available to us from that will enable to plan our policies and programmes based on more accurate information on the needs of Irish children.
Certainly cross-agency co-operation will be necessary to promote the work of the Department and to give the best service. We are working to establish children's services committees and four pilot committees in Dublin city, south Dublin and Limerick city have been established since 2007 and there are also additional ones. I want to roll out children's services committees across the country. They have a critical role to play at local level in bringing those who provide services for children together.
I have addressed the issue of the children's referendum at the committee previously. If members want to ask me any questions, I would be very happy to reply to them.
I hope my presentation demonstrates the range of policy functions coming under the new Department. The creation of a new Department is a challenging task. We have a major reform programme and we have made significant progress together. The creation of this Department is an opportunity to bring together the agencies and policies in regard to children to enable us to transform the way we plan, design and deliver services for children, young people and families and move on to better inter-agency work.
There is no room for complacency, as we have seen from the Cloyne report this week and from the appalling case in Donegal where Mr. Justice Paul Carney rightly raised questions yesterday as to how this situation could have arisen. I have received a preliminary report on it. The case raises the most serious questions and it demands full answers and full details. I will be asking for a full report. The Minister for Justice and Equality has also asked for a full report from the Garda.