I think the trouble is the right hand does not tell the left whats going on, poor communication is a problem a lot of the time, plus there is a attitude in this Country that nobody is allowed complain when a problem appears, it gets swept under the carpet, and God help anyone who complains they get called whistle blowers and sacked..

I think we need to totally rethink the way we are doing things and how the system works. And I agree with Charlie McConalogue that is up to us to ensure this issue stays at the top of the agenda so we don’t ever have to read about another horrific report again. It is not good enough to be outraged once a year.

Until we replace the layer upon layer of middle and senior management in the HSE with some old fashioned leadership, these type of issues will just go on and get worse and worse.
HSE, like so much of our civil service is a breeding ground for “management” devoid of any sense of leadership where report after report gathers dust on shelves in needlessly rented office space in a host of towns throughout the country.
And we expect incompetent parish pump politicians to grasp the nettle. It’s all a bit too cosy and this government which promised so much and is delivering so little is just more of the same. Is there a leader out there?

“The Report is also an indictment of how our country responded to these children’s needs.”

No Deputy McConalogue, it’s an indictment of how your party, Fianna Fáil, failed to respond to children with care needs in Ireland when they were in government.

There might have been extra money thrown at the HSE for care work, and extra social workers recruited. But the money was being put in to an already chronically underfunded system that was broken from the outset. Extra social workers were recruited and case loads increased. It isn’t unusual for children to go in to foster care and not be given a care plan, or for them not to see their social worker for over a year. Any money that was invested in addressing this problem went towards addressing issues for when children were already *in* care, rather than addressing issues such as embedded structural disadvantage and intergenerational poverty that may actually have an effect on keeping children out of care in the first place.

Charlie raises a great point here in that we, as a society, tend to be more concerned on trying to vent anger at an individual or organization, rather than focusing on the problem at hand and finding a viable, sustainable solution. The more attention this gets, the more the question is asked, the more likely that it is we see credible action taken on this and that maybe some other young life will not go to waste in such a manner again. Good article all round!

It’s a complete lie that the care system is well-funded and I’m not surprised to see this crap coming from Fianna Fail who underfunded it for years, even during the boom.

Ask any social worker what their options are if they want to take a child into care and most of the time they avoid it at all cost because there is simply nowhere to send the kids and even living with negligent, junkie parents is better than being dumped into a homeless shelter for adult addicts. Residential care facilities are always oversubscribed with long waiting lists and social workers have ridiculous case loads that make it impossible to do their job properly. Operating in permanent crisis mode means they can often only react after disasters have happened, rather than being able to prevent them.

The overwhelming reason for this is that successive governments have underfunded the system and expected it to operate on a shoestring because they don’t really care about marginalised children from deprived backgrounds. Management issues are also important, but mainly that there is too much of it as with everywhere else in the HSE, and not enough frontline staff. Another issue is that a lot of child protection staff are young and experienced and turnover is sky high because it’s so notoriously awful to work in that most people get out of it as fast as they can to go into pretty much any area of social work.

Charlie McConalogue makes some useful points. He also make some whoppers too. I think its fair to ask, without seeking to undermine his personal interests, what specific qualifications or experience has seem him appointed as spokeperson for children. If only elected since Feb, hes still getting a handle on how the Dail works, so clearly it is not his expertise on that. So maybe he has some expertise or experience specifically in the field of child care and protection

On maybe political organisations in the Dail dont really do things that way do they. Maybe being spokeperson on Children is seem a blooding for the career politician, not really that important. To be clear this is personal attack, just looking at the real politik machination of electoral representation that has tended not to ever serve the weakest is societies that well.

In terms of the whopper arguments, he suggest that there is no use in looking at the organisations that have exercised power over people, and that somehow by not doing this we can look at the root causes of the problem. He belongs an organisation, Fianna Fáil that since the inception of the state has played a role in reinforcing the practice of neglect and abuse of children by state and church over generations. Whilst the Roman Catholic church has rightly been scrutinized for its role in the appalling violence against children and women and its continual cover up, no such examination of other large institutions or organisation that exercise power and authority and thus facilitated such cover up.

No honest historical appraisal can ignore the role of political parties and indeed the police force of the day for a wider culture of state violence against the poor and most vulnerable.

It seems to me that those with the statutory responsibility for child care are replicating the old RC child-farming system, at least as far as gross scandals are concerned.

The HSE has no excuse – they are the so-called child-care professionals, the church was just an ignorant organisation chancing their arm with at least one eye on the financial gains. Thankfully their day is done, and their secret millions salted away in high finance bonds and shares hade turned to the biblical rust and dust.
As in most such scandals, the hordes of management are usually the chief offenders – apologies, promises, apologies and more promises. It’s a game of bluff by unscrupulous self-seekers.

And it will go on as long as there are weak and voiceless persons to bear the pain!

Mary harney, bertie aherne, have a lot to answer for!

its about time we created a bill of childrens rights, also a floor in which no child should go below, we need to invest in safe houses for children rather than these hostels, and ensure a compassionate experience for them. social workers are good people, and should be able to go with their judgement without feeling like taking children from dangerous situations would be possibly putting them in an even more dangerous one