Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald is determined to move quickly to introduce child protection safeguards, she tells JAMIE SMYTH, Social Affairs Correspondent
THE GOVERNMENT will move this year to place national child protection safeguards on a statutory footing to enhance the accountability of people working with children.
It will also begin the work of establishing a new child protection agency separate from the Health Service Executive, says Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald, who has been in her new job for more than a month, says agreeing an implementation plan to place the Children First guidelines – national child protection safeguards – on a statutory footing is a priority.
“I’d like to see this happening pretty quickly, definitely this year, and in the early half of this year . . . I want us to be very clear about how we are going to protect children. We are waiting about 10 years and it has to happen very soon,” she says.
The Children First guidelines outline procedures for strengthening arrangements for the protection of children and to assist people in identifying and reporting child abuse. But significant gaps and geographical differences in service provision have been identified by NGOs and the Ombudsman for Children in the way State bodies, including the HSE local health offices, implement the guidelines.
The previous government announced plans to place the guidelines on a statutory footing following publication of the Ryan Report on clerical child sex abuse in 2009. But this has still not happened despite recent scandals involving child protection deficiencies such as the Roscommon child abuse case.
“Accountability is a very big issue. But you can only have it when clear standards and procedures have been laid out. So you have something to judge behaviour against,” says Fitzgerald, who wants to agree an implementation plan with agencies working with children to ensure they comply with the new guidelines
When they are placed on a statutory footing, the guidelines should ensure child protection services are provided on a consistent basis across the State. Monitoring and enforcement mechanisms should be part of new legislation, and people working with children could face tests to ensure they are aware of the new guidelines.
“You have to ensure that there is a standard that is being met. Test sounds like you are doing your Leaving Certificate. This is about a standard that has to be met and it is routine in different agencies,” says Fitzgerald, who adds that she will pursue reform in the way agencies deliver services.
“My sense is given what we have been through in this country I think everyone working in the area is motivated to do the right thing – I don’t see resistance to this. The country is traumatised by what has happened to children,” she said.
Fitzgerald has direct experience of child protection. She studied for bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social policy at University College Dublin and the London School of Economics, and worked as a social worker in Britain and Ireland before entering politics.
She worked in Maudsley hospital, which is a centre of excellence of families and children with mental health difficulties in south London. She also worked for Southwark and Lewisham local authorities, where she gained experience of adoption, fostering and working with children at risk.
“I saw a range of services that were available in the British social services that were a far cry from anything available in Ireland at that time,” says Fitzgerald, who adds that she will use all her experiences in social work and in the NGO sector in her new role.
Perhaps her biggest challenge will be the Government’s strategy of setting up a new child protection agency separate from the Health Service Executive.
Fine Gael’s manifesto proposed doing this within 18 months, but Fitzgerald is more cautious on timelines now, saying only that it is a short to medium-term plan that will take less than five years.
“In terms of child protection and welfare, the existing system hasn’t worked well to date despite various efforts . . . under the umbrella of an agency whose prime business is something else,” she says.
“There will be an executive agency accountable to the Minister set up now that takes the functions currently in the HSE.”
Details have yet to be decided, but she says the HSE’s new national director for child and family social services, Gordon Jeyes, will be part of the new agency. She says the agency will work to support families and will not just be about investigating families.
“I would not like to see the agency stigmatised or identified in any way that would be damaging to children and families. You have to watch this issue of stigma,” she says.
Critics suggest removing child protection from the HSE could remove the benefits of integration with other HSE services, such as public health nursing and psychiatric services. Fitzgerald says sophisticated linkages between the new child protection agency and these existing HSE services will enable seamless delivery of service.
“The services should fall in around the child and the family,” she says.
Asked whether the State can afford to properly fund the new agency and her new department, Fitzgerald admits the country is in a “very difficult situation. One of the central tenets of this Government is that reform saves money. Because we can’t go on the way we are,” she says.
Upgrading the children’s ministry to a full ministry from a so-called super junior ministry, was an important decision by party leaders Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore.
“It is a value statement about where this work needs to be positioned in government,” says Fitzgerald. “This gives you scope for liaising with other cabinet members for decision-making at the highest level and to ensure that even at a time of limited resources, resources are made available,” she says.
Negotiations on what functions and units will be moved from other ministries to the new children’s ministry are ongoing.
“The Taoiseach wants this department to be meaningful. It has to have depth and have access to decision-making in areas that matter to children’s lives . . . I’d be examining areas in education, health, justice,” says Fitzgerald, who also emphasises the importance of co-ordinating her work with other Ministers in the Government.
When he stood down in March, the previous minister for children Barry Andrews said one of his regrets was that crisis management in the area of child protection had diverted his attention from some broader children’s issues. Fitzgerald says it is very important that the broader remit of her role is met as well.
“We have 1.4 million children under 18 years. These are the PhDs and the knowledge economy of the future. Our success as an economy, not to mention the success of individual lives, will depend on the quality of experience they enjoy,” she says.
Adoption, youth affairs, childhood obesity, sport and culture are all issues on her radar screen. “If you have 25 per cent of seven year olds who are either obese or overweight, then you have a major public health epidemic,” says Fitzgerald, who says this is a priority area that will be tackled in conjunction with the Minister for Health.
“Access to sport is an important issue. We need to examine the whole role of PE in schools and again you are linking with other departments,” she says.
Another potentially tricky issue for Fitzgerald is a referendum on children’s rights. The previous government rejected an all-party consensus on the wording of an amendment to the Constitution to older children’s rights for fear it would lead to a glut of future court cases. She is now reconsidering this issue and the timing of a vote.
“We will see how quickly we can arrive at a wording that is acceptable to Government and then take decisions on the timing. The presidential election has been mentioned as a possibility. But there are a lot of referendums in the programme for Government, so we have to see what the best approach to the timing of it,” she says.