Extra powers are to be given to the Health Service Executive (HSE) to investigate child abuse allegations levelled against teachers, sports coaches and voluntary workers, it has emerged.
Under the current legislation, the responsibility for dealing with allegations of abuse against children by non-family members lies first with the parents or guardians of the children affected.
Though the HSE has powers under the 1991 Child Care Act, there are difficulties about when and how social workers should intervene.
"We want to make more explicit the powers to share information about abuse," one source close to the issue told The Irish Times. "This whole area is fraught with constitutional difficulty."
Currently, there are doubts about the protection enjoyed by gardaí, teachers and social workers if they share information about allegations of abuse against children made by someone outside of their families.
Protections given by the Data Protection Act have also had unintended consequences for the ability of gardaí and social workers to share information held on computers about such cases.
The amendments, expected to go before the Oireachtas in coming weeks, will make it clear data protection rights cannot be used to limit the sharing of abuse allegations.
The problems were highlighted in the 2005 Ferns inquiry report, which investigated 100 allegations of abuse made against priests of the Ferns diocese between 1962 and 2002.
The South Eastern Health Board, Ferns inquiry chairman Mr Justice Francis Murphy found, had acted outside the law when it investigated allegations of abuse made against Fr James Grennan in Monageer, Co Wexford. Following the 1988 allegations by two girls to the principal of the local primary school, the health board sent a social worker to interview seven girls.
"Although their intervention was well-intended and undertaken with commendable expedition, it could not be classified as appropriate," the judge wrote in his final report in October 2005.
"The only power of the health board to inform interested parties that allegations of child sexual abuse have been made against a particular person is one inferred from the wide-ranging objective of child protection imposed on health boards by the 1991 Child Care Act.
"There is difficulty therefore in determining whether, and in what circumstances, such notification should be given," he wrote.
Last November, Minister of State for Children Brian Lenihan told the Dáil that Attorney General Rory Brady had examined the issue and believed the HSE had sufficient powers to probe allegations. However, the Government has decided to amend the Child Care Amendment Bill to make the powers "explicit" and to put the issue beyond further doubt.
The new powers will be added to the Child Care Amendment Bill, which will give extra rights to long-term foster parents when it returns to the Dáil for committee stage debate.
Meanwhile, Mr Lenihan is to meet Catholic Church leaders next week to discuss the wording of the Government's proposed children's rights referendum.
