Madigan welcomes HIQA Report on Children’s Services 2015

Fine Gael TD for Dublin Rathdown and Family Lawyer, Josepha Madigan, has welcomed the findings of the Health Information and Quality Authority’s 2015 overview report on their independent inspections of Tusla run children’s services.

“The report stated that, overall; there was good social work practice with children and families in foster care and the child welfare and protections services. HIQA identified that Tusla needed more social workers and needed to increase standardisation of services around the country to ensure that all children received an equitable provision of service. The report also noted the need for continuing development of national policies.

“We must always seek to improve and examine standards for children in care; our standards need to be high. HIQA as an independent body plays a very important role in safeguarding standards for children in care, by inspecting and monitoring.

“Since 2014 we have a specialist agency dealing with the vital area of vulnerable children since the founding of TUSLA, the Child and Family Agency. In 2015 the Children and Family Relationships Act radically changed child law allowing relatives to step in and seek custody or guardianship where they have cared for a child for over a year. This is a two pronged strategy; it allows family members to step in where the child has been living with them for over a year and the parent cannot cope. In addition since 2014 we have a specialist agency responsible for child protection.

“However HIQA identified a shortage of social workers across many inspections and these are areas where greater resources are necessary. I believe the increase in funding of €38 million in 2016 will lead to the recruitment of more necessary social workers.

“I welcome that Tusla also reported that 99% of children who are listed on the Child Protection Notification System have an allocated social worker. The remaining 1% (18) of children, are supervised by a social worker on the duty team while undergoing assessment.”