MINISTER FOR Children Barry Andrews has rejected proposals to remove responsibility for childcare services from the Health Service Executive (HSE) over its high-profile failures in the area.
But he has said a shake-up of HSE management in the area will be undertaken in coming months and more social workers will be appointed this year and next to reform and improve the system.
“I can’t deny that we have given it some thought over the last few months but there are a number of reasons why it is not a good idea to remove childcare services from the HSE,” said Mr Andrews.
"In many ways you'd just be moving the existing deficits to a new organisation. The problems within the HSE are perfectly solvable within the current structures," he told The Irish Times.
After months of delay, the HSE finally revealed last week that at least 188 young people who were in care or in contact with social services had died over the past decade. This has prompted some children’s rights campaigners, such as Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay, to call on the Government to reconsider the HSE’s role in child welfare.
But, following a meeting with Minister for Health Mary Harney and HSE chief executive Brendan Drumm yesterday to discuss the latest figures, Mr Andrews said removing childcare services from the HSE would result in missed opportunities and delays.
“This would result in trying to carve out a separate budget and carving out professionals for a new service. It would take at least a year to build up a new childcare and family service independent of the HSE, ” he said.
Mr Andrews said the roll out of HSE primary care teams across the country presented an opportunity to address the problems of children at risk in a more integrated manner. Keeping the childcare services within the HSE meant children within the care system would have access to specialists in areas such as mental health and speech therapy. If you are serious about early intervention then this access is needed and you wouldn’t separate childcare services from the HSE, he said.
Mr Andrews denied the childcare system was “dysfunctional” and asked people not to jump to conclusions following the revelation of the 188 deaths. He said these numbers would need to be compared with other jurisdictions by the Independent Review Group on child deaths while in State care.
He said it was possible the figure could increase due to the difficulty of being definitive because some of the young people who died were over 18 and would have left care for some years.
Mr Andrews said a shake up of HSE management of childcare services would be undertaken in coming months. He also reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to hire 200 new social workers in 2010. Some 25 new social workers have so far been recruited, he said, and a further 175 would be in place by the end of the year, he said.
Meanwhile, the HSE has said it will complete all outstanding care plans for foster children in two Dublin areas by the end of the year and recruit 10 new social workers in the next three months to deal with the backlog.
The move comes after an audit in the Dublin northwest and Dublin north central areas found well over 200 children had placements with unapproved foster parents for significant periods or were without care plans.