Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 13 December 2018
4. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the status of the actions taken by her Department and Tusla on foot of the recommendations of the Charleton report; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52601/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Minister has accepted the absolutely horrendous indictment of the operational management of Tusla in the Charleton report. The report lays bare the seriously disconnected nature of the service and the lack of communication, which was staggering. Could the Minister make a statement on the matter?
I thank the Deputy for his important question. As the chairman of the tribunal, Mr. Justice Peter Charleton, noted in his report, this tribunal was about calling the Garda to account. The recommendations of the report are mainly a matter for An Garda Síochána. A relatively small portion of the report concerns Tusla. Although it does not make specific recommendations about Tusla, the report does identify some very serious issues that existed in a social work office in one area at the time.
Arising from the tribunal's report, I wrote to the chairperson of Tusla on 6 November last. In the letter, I noted the failures in the management of the referral made in respect of former Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe. I asked the board to consider what steps it would take in terms of a management response, including training, performance management and leadership, and in terms of changing the culture of the organisation to ensure it learns from previous mistakes.
I received a response from the board on Tuesday last, 11 December. It addresses the issues raised in my letter, notes actions under way and provides the basis for further consideration of these serious matters.
The Deputy will be aware that a number of the issues were also identified in HIQA's statutory investigation into Tusla's management of allegations of sexual abuse, which I established in 2017 and whose report I published in June of this year. These issues included poor record-keeping and management, and an inconsistent approach to the implementation of national policies and procedures. Following the publication of the HIQA report, Tusla committed to a strategic action plan, approved by its board.
Many of the issues relevant to Tusla that were raised in Mr. Justice Charleton's report are addressed in that plan. Others, which have not been covered to date, will be incorporated into the action plan, once agreed by the board. The strategic action plan has been submitted to my Department and to the expert assurance group I have established to monitor the implementation of the recommendations and advise Tusla and my Department. The group meets regularly to assess the status of the key actions under its remit and I expect that its first quarterly report will be submitted to me in the coming days.
It is fine to suggest there was but one social work office in one area at one time, as the Minister did, but Mr. Justice Peter Charleton lays bare what was happening. As he said, "The Tusla letter wrongly accusing Maurice McCabe was opened by his wife in January 2016." He also stated that, after all the issues that arose, "Tusla were slow to respond to the public request for cooperation by the tribunal. Statements made were laconic to the point of being mysterious." Imagine. The Minister stated that there was poor management and poor leadership. Do we know what we are dealing with here? Mr. Justice Charleton's report refers to Tusla's subsequent failure to face up to and admit its considerable failings and stupidity. This is absolutely damning stuff and must be treated with the utmost seriousness.
The agency has incredible power, as we all know. We now see it was grossly mismanaged and that a wholesale review of its entire operation is necessary. I accept the Minister has admitted she was extremely disappointed that the tribunal found Tusla slow to respond to public requests for co-operation. She stressed that things are changing for the better. She said she got a new report yesterday on how things will change. It is a number of years into the operation of the organisation. We warned at the time it was set up, when so many staff were hived off from the HSE, that there was no proper planning or management.
I appreciate the Deputy's passion regarding this matter. I share it. He is right to raise these questions. I am really struggling to find the right word. "Pleased" is not the right word but it is good that we have the tribunal's report in this regard. It complements the HIQA statutory investigation, to which I referred. These are serious matters. The first point the Deputy made was that one of the key criticisms was the slowness of Tusla to respond in co-operating with the tribunal. I raised those issues directly with the board when I met it prior to the exchange of letters to which I referred. Therefore, I share the concerns of the Deputy in that regard, and I have expressed them.
The Deputy referred to the report as "damning stuff". Indeed it is. It is clearly devastating in its assessment of the poor management, supervision and record management in Tusla's Cavan–Monaghan area. In response to the letter that the board wrote back to me, I asked it to articulate the ways in which the practice on the ground is being improved. I might elaborate on that in my next comment.
Poor record-keeping and bad management might be fine in a GAA club or similar organisation but Tusla is a national organisation with incredible powers. It is devastating if those powers are mishandled, as in the case of the letter. After all that occurred, there were no positive replies and no rush to sort this out and make it better. The culture is the issue. Many of the officials were good officials - do not get me wrong - but so many of them were hived off from the HSE to set up Tusla. When the legislation was passed here, it was regarded as a great day and the job was regarded as done. The officials were then left to their own devices, with no proper management structures in place. As stated, there were poor management structures and poor record-keeping practices.
How are things changing? What is happening today to reassure us there is change? We really need reassurance that this can never happen again because, as I stated, Tusla is not a GAA club or small company that gets fined by the Revenue Commissioners for poor record-keeping; it is a national organisation with incredible powers.
These are serious issues. I share the Deputy's concerns. How Tusla will assure itself, and me, that the practice on the ground is being improved is an important question. A key aspect of Tusla's management team is quality assurance. It is responsible for conducting internal monitoring and audit exercises of the different aspects of the agency's work. That includes monitoring, auditing, child protection practices to check for consistency of policy, application in social work practice and measuring the quality of services being delivered. The people doing the quality assurance activity, including analysing data received from all the 17 areas, are independent of the chief operations officer and report directly to the CEO. As I understand it, Tusla has been provided with additional resources to strengthen its role and is continuing to implement that.
