Extra social support not seen as ‘priority’

THE HSE has failed to create a “comprehensive” nationwide out-of-hours social workers system for vulnerable children over the past two years because it did not consider it a priority.

Speaking at the latest HSE South regional health forum meeting yesterday, health service officials confirmed that despite the vital need for such a service the out-of-hours system was not introduced.

Interim assistant national director in the region Anna-Marie Lanigan said the possible creation of the system had been considered by officials at the start of 2008.

However, she said that as the HSE was already employing an outside for-profit organisation called Five Rivers to find out of hours social workers and overnight placements for vulnerable children, the development of its own service was not seen as a priority.

“The provision of a comprehensive out of hours service across the country was considered and a determination was made that the implementation of such a service was not the immediate priority,” the senior official said.

“[This was because of] the current state of development of our services and that additional resources should be targeted at other priority areas such as the provision of additional social workers on the ground,” she added.

Fine Gael councillor John Buttimer asked how much the Five Rivers agreement was costing the state, how many social workers are available out of hours, and whether any services were available at weekends.

However, while a HSE spokesperson confirmed that no services are available on non-holiday weekends, she was unable to provide any further details to the questions.

This emerged as Fine Gael children’s spokesman Alan Shatter revealed the HSE had left a child in an internet cafe on Tuesday night because no suitable accommodation was available.

The case, involving a 16-year-old boy who is waiting for psychiatric assessment, was raised during a Dáil debate on the proposed constitutional amendment on the rights of children.

Mr Shatter said the boy was no longer in the education system, had fallen into a street life and was becoming drug dependent.