INSPECTIONS BY the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) of HSE child and family services are expected to begin by the end of the year.
Draft child-protection standards published yesterday by the authority (available on hiqa.ie) will be subject to an eight-week consultation process before they are finalised.
They will then require the approval of Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald before they take legal effect. This is expected later this year.
Niall Byrne, deputy director of the social services inspectorate in Hiqa, said the standards would give the authority a “much more comprehensive remit” with HSE children and family services.
He said that this was an “attempt to define and describe in a clear way what accountability and governance structures should look like” within the services.
During past inspections of children’s residential-care facilities and foster-care services, the authority uncovered cases in which child protection issues were not fully addressed, said Mr Byrne.
“Previously . . . we’ve responded to issues of potential failings but in an indirect manner. Now we will actually have an authority to go to the child protection service itself and ask the relevant management and staff . . . as to what exactly is happening so we can form a view across the board instead of just highlighting individual occurrences,” he said.
On foot of this the authority has received resources for 14 extra inspectors, including additional foster-care inspection posts.
Inspections and monitoring will be carried out regularly; they will be “risk-led” and the authority will also be examining previous inspection findings to indicate areas of “historical weaknesses”.
He stressed the inspections were designed to give an overall assessment across the service, as opposed to just reporting on the serious deficits.