There is a
“crisis of credibility” with Irish child protection services, according to the head of the Health
Service Executive’s family and children’s services.
He said we lack a “proper child protection system”.
Gordon Jeyes
said that said a new child protection register should be set up, and that those
families placed on the register, who are identified as having a child “at risk”,
should be subject to receiving compulsory support to ensure the safety of
children, The Irish Times reports.
Mr Jeyes was
appointed in December following widespread concern about the deaths of children
in State care.
Speaking at
a children’s conference in Dublin yesterday, he said: “Ireland needs a carefully
constructed and consistent child protection system where you are saying to a
family this is the last-chance saloon. We need to work very carefully with
people. We want to support you because we know you don’t want your children
taken into care.”
He said
there needed to be more intervention in families with the back-up of court
approval to enable social workers to provide support to families. This support
could then be withdrawn when it was safe, said Mr Jeyes.
“I don’t
think Ireland has got a proper child protection system. It has good practice, it
has superb practitioners and good procedures but it doesn’t have a system,” Mr
Jeyes said.
He said the
child protection notification system, a key element of the current protection
system where details of every child considered “at risk” are entered by social
workers and gardaí, was not working effectively in all
areas.
He said in
one Dublin HSE area some 758 children were listed on the register, while in
three other HSE areas, the number was about 150. He said the low numbers on the
register were out of kilter with the number in care and suggested too many were
listed as welfare – not child protection – cases.
Mr Jeyes,
who was the UK’s first director of children’s services and has provided advice
to governments in Scotland and at Westminster, will work closely with the new
Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald to set up an agency dedicated to family
and children’s services outside of the HSE.
Ms
Fitzgerald said yesterday Mr Jeyes would be a lead figure working alongside her
on the strategy to create the new agency.
The
Government has decided to bring the family support agency, the youth justice
service, the national education and welfare board and a new children and family
support agency under the department.
Several
pieces of legislation will also have to be passed to confer full powers on the
Minister.