Childcare needs independent oversight

Noel Baker’s article on the Child and Family Agency/TUSLA’s “unsustainable” legal spend, (Irish Examiner, September 26) quoted Eibhlín Byrne, executive manager of TUSLA: “the current system in which we operate is broken, and increasingly adversarial”.

Ms Byrne said steps had been taken to reduce legal spend. When she says the system is “increasingly adversarial”, who does she claim is responsible? The buck stops with Gordon Jeyes and his team, of which she is one. It ill behoves her, as TUSLA’s executive manager, to preside over a system that is “broken”.

Until TUSLA, or Jeyes, advocates what is best for children in care, and listens to practical suggestions from the family, there will not be a reduction in legal spend.

Baker’s article had a worrying reference to the guardian-ad-item service: Ms Byrne said while the GAL expenses are paid by TUSLA, “we do not have oversight”. A guardian ad litem is a court-appointed advocate for children in care. S/he is independent, and is the sole representation for each child in care. S/he is the child’s voice in court. While it is important, and overdue, that the GAL system be regulated, and that such regulations incorporate oversight, under no circumstances should that oversight be undertaken by the Child and Family Agency/TUSLA. Rather, an independent body, such a HIQA, which already does such sterling work in similar areas, should be considered.

Margaret O’Regan

Frankfield Terrace

Summerhill South

Cork