For children’s sake, Harney should stop playing political hide-and-seek

“AS a childcare manager ... I was tasked with receiving all notifications of suspected child abuse and ensuring appropriate action.

However, the social work service had all the information pertaining to allegations on a database called the Social Work Information System. As childcare manager I was prevented from gaining access to that system. Therefore I had no access to check the effectiveness of practice.”

That couple of sentences are in the Ombudsman for Children’s Report into the operation of Children First within our health system. Children First is the set of national guidelines for the protection and welfare of children. There is absolutely no difficulty about following them on paper and there should be no difficulty in the wide earthly world about implementing them.

But they are not being implemented and that is the main reason why so many children in Ireland are at risk.

In her high-quality report, which is equally accessible and easy to read, the Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan, goes on to say:

“Another child care manager stated that while some social workers notified cases regularly to her, others did not. She had become aware of unnotified cases on some occasions when contacted by external agencies about such cases, or when subsequently asked by social workers for child protection conferences on such cases. She also stated that the number of cases notified had varied from year to year as staff changed. For example, in one year they fell to a trough of only 12% of the figure for cases notified some years previously. Following staffing changes, the numbers notified not only recovered, but exceeded, their original level. The childcare manager believed that this was more satisfactory.”

Now, compare these few sentences with another couple, uttered by the Minister for Children in yesterday’s Irish Independent. “I cannot anticipate at this point what the reason is, but if it goes to basic incompetence and people are still in responsible positions, I can only assume it’s putting children at risk. There can’t be any tolerance of that,” he said. “We won’t hesitate to call on bishops to step down where they have not done things they should have done or not known things they should have known. I think the same standards have to apply to people in the secular authorities who are professionally and statutorily mandated to do this work.”

What was he talking about? He was referring to two astonishing claims. First, there was the claim in the Sunday Business Post that the number of children who have died in the care of the state could be as high as 200 — nearly 10 times higher than previously thought. And second, there was the revelation that the body set up two months ago to begin an independent review of child death in care had still not been given access to a single file. The minister, questioned about both issues, had to confess that he was as frustrated as everyone else at the lack of information, and at the slowness of the system in getting to grips with the need for transparency.

We live in the 21st century. It’s a time when information flies around the world in nano-seconds, when economies can be destabilised by a couple of email and when, on the other hand, doctors and scientists on different continents can consult with each other in real time over the internet. And yet, if the HSE was using quill pens to transcribe data onto ancient parchment, illustrating their reports as if they were the Book of Kells, they couldn’t be slower.

But this is much more than a failure of communication, grievous as that is. It’s a failure of structure, governance, authority and resources. Above all, it’s a failure of political leadership.

For example, did you know we had a Minister for Health and CHILDREN in Ireland, a person with full cabinet status, a person who manages an annual budget of not far short of €16 billion ? Ultimately, this minister has political oversight of the work and activities of more than 100,000 people.

Mary Harney is her name. Nobody can be expected to be responsible for individual failure when they have more than 100,000 people to account for. But surely, when it is so evident that an entire system has ceased to function, it is reasonable to expect the relevant minister to be heard from.

But can you remember the last time Minister Harney has said anything at all about the fact that Irish children are dying in care, or are at serious risk day in and day out?

I can’t — in fact it’s my understanding that no reporter even bothers to ask her the question because responsibility has been so firmly passed to a minister of state who (even though he attends cabinet meetings) has none of the authority that a full minister has. Barry Andrews (and he’s a good, committed hard-working minister of state), can say until he’s blue in the face that “there can’t be any tolerance of that”.

But he can’t do anything about it.

For example, Minister Andrews is totally committed to giving the Children First guidelines the strength of law — but the political will to do it, as a matter of urgency, simply isn’t there. Until that’s done, it is absolutely pointless for us to be shocked at the thought that churchmen and swimming coaches can thumb their noses at the guidelines, when HSE officials can simply ignore them.

Some of the names of children who have died have found their way into the public domain — Tracey Fay, David Foley, Daniel McAnaspey, Danny Talbot. What we know is that these were lost children, desperate for help, crying out for help. We have a system in place to help them and it hasn’t been working.

IT will never work until it is given structural priority and proper governance. Of the €14bn the HSE spends every year, around €5bn is spent on hospitals. But 90% or more of the management time and thinking the HSE does is devoted to that € 5bn — a third of the budget gets all the attention. It’s daft and it’s scandalous.

The Minister for Health and CHILDREN has to take control of this situation.

And if she doesn’t, the Taoiseach should arrange for her to be replaced by someone who is prepared to find out exactly why our system of child protection is failing so badly.

It mightn’t take a lot of money to solve the problem, even though every single agency working in this field — statutory and non-statutory — has endured significant cutbacks in the past two years. The reality is that the amount of extra money needed right now to deal with the tragedies waiting to happen, and to prevent future ones, amounts to petty cash when compared with some of the things to which the Government is prepared to commit.

But a huge injection of political will is needed.

All of us know children at risk right now, children leading chaotic lives, children who may die if they don’t get help.

The Government cannot be allowed to sit on its hands, passing the buck to a junior minister anymore.