Excerpt from Dail Transcript 04 Mar 2010

The Death of Children in the Care of the State Since 2000: Statements.

Deputy Alan Shatter: I will start by agreeing with the Minister that not only is it a significant part of his work to ensure the State acts in loco parentis to children taken into care, ensuring they are properly protected, but that it is the most significant and important part of his work. If I was Minister of State with responsibility for children and, within a short period of coming into office, learned that more than 20 children in the care of the State had died in a decade, I would want to know the exact circumstances that pertained to each child. I would want to know the care provided to each child and, if something went wrong, exactly what it was. I would wish to ensure that there was accountability and transparency, that investigations were conducted in a thorough manner and that reports were published and recommendations for change made, and their implementation monitored. Unfortunately, that has not been the manner in which this Minister of State has dealt with his child protection duties.

I acknowledge that many children taken into care present real challenges. Nearly all of them have come from troubled backgrounds. They need a great deal of support; different children have different needs and requirements. An alarming number of children, as detailed by the Minister of State, have died in State care as a result of suicide or overdose. Indeed, it is not always possible to distinguish between overdose and suicide, because where a death is labelled as being the result of an overdose, it may well have been suicide. All of this indicates that a significant number of troubled children in State care were not given the protection or provided with the services to which they were entitled. As in the case of TF, whose report was published yesterday and — rightly, I believe — laid before this House, it may well be the case with regard to many of these children that psychiatric assessments were not undertaken when they should have been and proper assistance provided, or, where assessments were undertaken, the recommendations and results were ignored.

The problem is that the Minister of State with responsibility for children lacks the authority and the statutory powers to ensure that whatever policy he intends, with good intentions, to implement is actually implemented. He also seems to lack the authority to ensure that where children die in care, information is made available not for some prurient reason or to find a person to hold solely responsible, but to ensure that recommendations are published and implemented and the same mistakes are not repeated.

I wish to give a brief insight into the manner in which some of these issues have been dealt with. The Minister has made reference to a young man whose initials he gives as DF. That young man’s name has been mentioned in the media and in this House, but I will not violate his confidentiality. On 25 November 2008, I asked the Minister when the report into the death of this man, who entered our care system at the age of 14 and was dead by the age of 17, would be delivered. The Minister replied:
A draft report has now been received by the HSE. I am informed that a final report is imminent. . . . I understand that the findings of the inquiry will be forwarded to me once the report is finalised.
That was on 25 November 2008. The Minister is again telling us today that the report is about to be published. In response to a question in this House, he previously indicated that the report was imminent. We were told that in the House on 4 November 2009.

In dealing with these issues at a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children on 6 October 2009, I asked the Minister of State about a number of young people who died in care. I stated:
We know that at least 20 young people, who were taken into care and for whom either health boards or the HSE had responsibility, have died over the past ten years. It is possible the numbers are greater. We know that at least 11 of them died from a drug overdose.

I went on to refer to some of these children and young people particularly. On that date the Minister of State told me the report on DF would definitely be published on 21 October 2009, although we now know it was not. He indicated the report on TF would be published on 19 October 2009 but that did not happen either.
What the Minister of State did not tell me on that or any other occasion when I and other colleagues queried in this House the number of children who died was that reports were being prepared on a series of other children and which were at various stages. The Minister of State still has not told us in the House how many completed reports have been received. He told us the report on DF is about to be published but I do not know what that means or when it will be published. We do not know how many reports he has received.

Deputy Barry Andrews: There are four reports.

Deputy Alan Shatter: We do not know how many reports are still sitting with the HSE, the contents of which the Minister of State is unaware. That is unclear. I am greatly concerned that if we do not have true transparency and accountability in our child care services, we will never implement properly the required reforms to ensure children are truly protected.
We have paid lip service to child protection. We talk about a child-centred protection and welfare service and we have some amazing dedicated people in the social work and other areas providing that service but who are usually frustrated because they have to offer far too frequently a fire brigade service in protecting children. When they make recommendations on the steps to protect children, the resources and facilities are not there and children remain at risk. There are children walking our streets who continue to be at risk because of the failure of this Minister of State, his predecessors and the Government to ensure that children are properly protected.

The Minister of State participated in a television programme, “Prime Time”, in early September. The mothers of DF and the late TF appeared on the same programme and were identified, and the Minister of State discussed matters relating to child protection. He said that we had a new and exciting period in child protection, and the process was going extremely well. The truth is that a large part of the recommendations contained in the report published yesterday remain to be implemented and the entire plan following the publication of the Ryan commission report has a very long timeframe for implementation. Most seriously, I have been arguing for a decade that we must give statutory force to our child protection guidelines but it took until July 2009 for the Government to acknowledge the necessity to do so.

The truth is there is a difficulty with credibility between what the Minister of State says and what happens on the ground. We have a profound obligation to ensure children are protected and it is entirely wrong to criticise the hierarchy for concealing incidence of sexual abuse while the State conceals incidence of children dying in the care of the State. We should not look for scapegoats and we must acknowledge the work done by social workers but if mistakes are being made how can those who work with children know what needs to be corrected if they are unaware of recommendations for change that are put in place?
I welcome the fact we have had this brief exchange but I want an absolute commitment from the Minister of State that we will put in place a transparent inquiry or investigative system guaranteeing that when a child dies in care or a child reported to be at risk is not given the protection to which the child is entitled and winds up as a victim of abuse again, there will be an independent and speedy inquiry conducted. There should be transparency and the reports and recommendations should be published. There should be a system to monitor the proper implementation of those recommendations. We must ensure, most of all, that no more children in the protection of the State die as a consequence of the State failing him or her.