HSE accused of gross dishonesty and incompetence

“The inability of the HSE to properly collate and tell the truth about the number of children who died in care during the past 10 years is both shocking and unacceptable as is the number of children reported to have died,” according to Fine Gael Children’s Spokesman Alan Shatter TD. Continue reading »

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Fine Gael Children Spokesperson, Alan Shatter TD today (Monday) said:
“There are serious questions to be answered by the Taoiseach as to who is actually in charge and responsible for our child care and protection services. A succession of Ministers for Health and Children and Ministers of State for Children have over the past ten years resolutely defended the workings of our children’s services. Since publication by Fine Gael of the report into the tragic death of Tracey Fay, the present Minister for Children, having defended the indefensible, has become publicly critical of the service and in statements made today to the media has essentially renounced all personal responsibility for it. Continue reading »

Fine Gael Children Spokesperson, Alan Shatter TD, today (Sunday), responding to a Sunday Business Post report that the HSE now believes 200 children have died in care in the last 10 years, described it as a scandal of enormous proportions which demands an immediate response from the Minister for Children.  Deputy Shatter said the number now involved calls into question the capacity of Norah Gibbons and Geoffrey Shannon to carry out alone the work involved in their examination of the deaths of children in care which is due for publication by the end of the year. Continue reading »

The Minister for Children, Barry Andrews TD in July 2009, following the publication of the Ryan Commission Report, published an Implementation Plan which promised the recruitment by the HSE of 270 additional Social Workers in the area of child care and protection.

Alan Shatter TD, Fine Gael Front Bench Spokesperson on Children, today (Thursday) called on the Minister for Children to explain why, in the ten month period since the publication of the Implementation Plan, not a single additional social worker has been recruited and why the HSE is only now starting their recruitment process.

“In the Dáil this morning the Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan TD, set out a timescale for the recruitment of 200 additional Social Workers this year. She stated that by September this year a total of 125 additional Social Workers would be recruited with a further 75 to be recruited by 31st December. This afternoon, HSE CEO Mr Brendan Drumm, in contradiction of the Tánaiste’s statement in the Dáil, is reported in the media to have announced that 200 new social workers will be hired by the end of September this year. This yet again clearly illustrates that in addressing vital issues of child protection at Government and State agency level, the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”

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Speaking today (Thursday) Alan Shatter TD, Fine Gael Front Bench Spokesperson on Children said, ‘The Ryan Commission Report published in May 2009 recommended that an independent enquiry be conducted into the circumstances surrounding the death of a child who dies whilst in care.’

“The Implementation Plan published in July 2009 by the Minister for Children, Barry Andrews TD in response to the recommendations of the Ryan Commission Report promised that a 15 person panel would be formed by the HSE/IYJS (Irish Youth Justice Service) from which appropriate people to conduct such investigations could be selected. I am calling on the Minister to explain why the panel was not established by December 2009 as promised.

“In fact, individuals were only first approached on Tuesday of this week to ascertain their availability for such a panel after the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil had granted my request for an Adjournment Debate in the Dáil that evening calling for an independent enquiry into the death of Daniel McAnaspie.

“It should not have required the discovery of the remains of Daniel McAnaspie, another tragic teenager who died while in the care of the State, for the work necessary to appoint an appropriate panel of experts to investigate deaths of children in care to begin.”

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Article by Alan Shatter TD which appeared in the Irish Daily Mail on 18th May 2010

“Speaking today (Monday), Fine Gael Spokesperson on Children, Alan Shatter TD, said, ‘I very much regret to learn of the tragic death of Daniel McAnaspie. In the circumstances as disclosed I do not want to say anything that might impede any Garda investigation into his death. Tragically, he is another young man who has died while in the care of the State.” Continue reading »

The report published today (Tuesday) by the Ombudsman for Children is yet another damning indictment of the State’s failure to provide to children at risk the protection to which they are entitled, according to Fine Gael Children Spokesperson, Alan Shatter TD. Continue reading »