SIXTY SOCIAL workers who were due to be hired this year to strengthen child protection services are likely to be in place by the end of this year, Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald has said.
It emerged yesterday that none of the 60 staff due to be appointed on foot of the Ryan report’s recommendations is working on the ground. While the Health Service Executive was unable to say when they will be in place, Ms Fitzgerald, following a childcare conference at the Institute of Technology in Sligo, said she hoped all posts would be “ready to go” by the end of December this year.
Health authorities introduced what they described as a recruitment pause for the hiring of up to 1,400 staff – including social workers – last July as a result of financial pressures facing the organisation.
Ms Fitzgerald also said yesterday that work has begun on setting up a new child protection agency which will ultimately remove responsibility for child welfare from the HSE.
She said a “transition taskforce” is overseeing the design and delivery of the new child and family support agency, which will be separate from the executive. This is likely to be established in 2013.
It is understood that, in the meantime, a transitional agency will operate within the HSE with a ringfenced budget under the leadership of the executive’s national director for child and family services, Gordon Jeyes.
Ms Fitzgerald said the new body will play a crucial role in delivering what she hoped would be a “world-class Irish service” for family support, child welfare and protection services. A key focus of the agency will be to improve standards and ensure there is a consistent approach across all services to deal with reports or concerns over child welfare or protection.
In the meantime, an audit of the state of child protection services in all parts of the country is under way. The audit, commissioned by Ms Fitzgerald, will point to priority areas that need to be addressed across the sector.
This week it emerged that 35 young people who were known to social services died over the past 18 months. While none of the deaths was directly linked to inaction by the HSE, the independent chair of a panel which reviewed the deaths criticised the ongoing failures in parts of the system.
Ms Fitzgerald said the new agency would help reform the system and indicated that a long-promised referendum to strengthen children’s rights will be held next year.
“If the people agree, we will support these reforms with a change to our Constitution; to secure the rights of all children, independent of their rights as members of a family; and to ensure that children’s welfare is given primary consideration,” she said.
“I hope I can count on your support in the new year as we campaign for a Yes vote for this important constitutional amendment,” she told the conference.
In the area of early childhood care and education, new figures show that 94 per cent of children who are eligible for a free year of preschool have taken up the offer.
Ms Fitzgerald yesterday said the success of the scheme – which has attracted 66,000 children this year – is “unprecedented” when compared with similar preschool initiatives in other countries.
She pledged to maintain the free preschool year.
