IRELAND’S CHILD PROTECTION and welfare services are to be subject to independent inspection and monitoring.

Today’s announcement from the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) aims to strengthen and improve the services that currently exist.

The director of regulation at HIQA, Phelim Quinn, said that the move was “a significant milestone in putting safer and more reliable child protection and welfare systems in place for vulnerable and at-risk children.”

Quinn went on to say that, until now, the needs of children had “not been a priority” in how child protection and welfare support services had responded to concerns.

“The scale and seriousness of documented child abuse and neglect in Ireland has highlighted this in several reports,” Quinn said.

Monitoring programme

HIQA will now adopt the following steps in relation to monitoring:

• Assess that children and family services have the resources to ensure that children and young people are safeguarded
• Establish if a failure in this poses a serious risk to the children in receipt of these services
• Identify and report on areas of good practice where applicable
• Seek assurances from the HSE that children are being safeguarded through the mitigation of serious risks
• Inform the public as to their findings and encourage transparency through their publication

The first child protection and welfare inspection report from HIQA is set to be published online in the coming weeks.

Vice-Chair of the Oireachtas Health Committee, Deputy Ciara Conway, welcomed the move, calling it a “positive development, and one which I warmly welcome.”

She added:

HIQA does valuable work and I am confident that it will be able to identify any areas where standards need to be improved. I look forward to their reports in this area.

Read: ‘Worrying’ HIQA report raises questions about safety of foster children in Dublin North West >