merrion street

Introduction

I am delighted to be invited this evening to open the 13th European Regional International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Conference on the issues of child abuse and neglect.

I would like to welcome oversees delegates to Ireland and, in particular, welcome your decision to hold your Regional Conference here in Dublin.

On these serious issues with serious implications for the very basis of our society: our children our families.

By its nature, much of the work done in this area is reactive.

But this conference brings the valuable opportunity to take time to think to reflect.

You get to share your professional experience, your concerns, your hopes and ideas in the company of your peers.

Legacy

Over the past decade, country after country across the globe have found themselves having to face-up to scandals of child abuse.

Many of these have been institutional.

The church, religious orders, sports organisations and the entertainment industry.

Countries have responded with enquiries and where possible prosecutions.

In Ireland, since the 1980’s, we have nearly 20 major reports from such investigations.

In every country where we’ve had this experience:

We may have shone a light on dark corners of our history;

We may have exposed past evils;

We may have sought to give solace to victims; and

We may even have said something like ‘never again’.

But for all that we still find ourselves facing the awful truth.

Child abuse hasn’t gone away.

It doesn’t go away.

It is the lingering dark stain on the rich fabric of our humanity.

It is an evil which persists.

Child abuse is pervasive – it is a devastating fact that children all over the world are subject to physical, sexual or emotional ill-treatment or neglect.

Neglect

Neglect is now the most common type of abuse of children.

Picture a child going to school in the rain without a winter coat;

In damp, dirty clothes having not had a breakfast.

Going home with no guarantee of dinner to a cold house not a home.

For that child ‘loving care’ is a luxury. They just want care, basic care. But for many, it doesn’t happen.

Globally, the WHO estimates that every year, 40 million children are subject to child abuse.

We have had too many reports of child protection failings:

Failings by society.

Failings by the State

Failings by services.

We have failed far too many children huge numbers of our youngest and most vulnerable.

We know this and we know we cannot just do better, we must do our best.

Focus on Children

As Taoiseach of this country, leading this Government for two and half years, I have made it my business to do just that – to do things better for our children.

That’s why as soon as we came to Office we gave Children their own senior minister – Frances Fitzgerald, who will speak here later this week.

With the referendum in 2012 we changed the Constitution so we could take better care of our children and families.

Consequently, for the first time in the history of our State, our children feature in the Constitution as citizens in their own right.

We made sure that children in long-term foster care could be adopted into a loving home.

Overall, we were determined to make changes so that those with the smallest voices would have their say.

However, when we looked at how the state provides child and family services it was clear that here change wasn’t an option.

In this case only transformation would do.

Children’s First

Right now, as Irish professionals will know, work is underway to finalise the Children First bill.

As set out in the Children First Guidelines, this will both demand and guarantee best practice of every professional involved in child protection.

Already, the increased awareness of Children First, has resulted in a substantial increase in referrals to the child protection services.

Up by nearly a quarter in 2012 alone.

The pilot of the national Audit of Neglect Cases published in June, shows we are also seeing greater recognition and reporting of neglect.

It must be said that the increase in referrals has put a huge strain on services already under pressure. Something that Minister Fitzgerald sees and is working hard to address.

Reforming/Transforming

That is why right now she has ensured legislation is before the Dáil to establish for the first time, a single, dedicated Child and Family Agency.

Managing that process and transforming our child-and-family services is the single biggest task and opportunity facing our Minister for Children.

It represents an ambitious public service reform being undertaken by this Government; involving 4,000 staff across three existing agencies and a budget of nearly €600 million. Reforms include:

reorganising care services;

implementing new models for assessment and referral;

differentiating child protection and child welfare cases with a view to ensuring timely and proportionate responses to each

But already under this Government:

New performance indicators have been introduced to provide critical data on service capacity and demand:

New standards for child protection have been introduced with local social work teams being subjected to independent inspection for the first time; and

Regulations have been introduced to facilitate reporting for the first time of key trends from in-camera court proceedings on child welfare and protection.

I firmly believe that these service reforms, when fully implemented, coupled with the implementation of Child First guidelines and legislation along with the Child and Family Agency will leave a lasting legacy.

Conclusion

Before I leave you to your deliberations, I would say, that though we have a long way to go to get child services to where we want them to be we have done the most important thing of all we have made the start to reform transform.

Our collective concern here today is for child safety and wellbeing. With such a wide range of national and international expertise in the room, I have no doubt that this will be an excellent Conference.

I wish you well in your work and with the conference and assure you of my attention and support always.

Thank you.