AN INDEPENDENT national review of the current child protection system and independent statutory inquiries into serious failings in the system are among the proposals from the Government’s rapporteur on child protection, which the Cabinet received yesterday.
It will go before the Oireachtas later this week.
The report is the third from Geoffrey Shannon, who was appointed, along with Prof Finbarr McAuley, as special rapporteur on child protection in June 2006. This followed public debate on child protection following a Supreme Court ruling on criminal liability in under-age sex cases.
The rapporteurs were appointed as “independent legal experts whose functions are to keep under review and to audit legal developments for the protection of children; assess what impact, if any, litigation in national and international courts will have on child protection and to prepare, annually, a report to be submitted to the Oireachtas, setting out the results of the previous year’s work”.
In the report presented yesterday, Mr Shannon identifies a number of problems in the child protection system, including:
- No independent oversight of child protection services
- No system of inquiry into fundamental failings
- No statutory arrangements for the appointment, role and qualifications of guardians ad litem, who are advocates for the children involved
- No consistent application of the children first guidelines, which remain guidelines rather than statutory requirements.
He recommends an independent review of the current child protection system, which should examine child protection data, international practice and include consultation with stakeholders.
A committee on child welfare and protection, based within the office of the Minister for Children, should be established to oversee inquiries into serious failings of the child protection system, he states. Suspected fundamental failings of the child care system should be responded to with independent, statutory inquiries, which should be public unless there are special circumstances which preclude it, he states.
The guidelines for the appointment, role and qualifications of guardians ad litem, who speak for children in care proceedings, should be enacted on a statutory basis and a regulatory and management body for guardians ad litem should be established.
All care facilities should receive independent and thorough inspections and service providers should be given more comprehensive guidelines on obligations to consult children in care. Managers should be adequately trained on how best to develop and maintain a culture of implementation of rules and standards.
He does not recommend the introduction of mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse, having examined the advantages and disadvantages of this in other jurisdictions. Instead he recommends the children first guidelines be reviewed and amended and placed on a statutory footing, in order to ensure consistency of approach throughout the State.
He also recommends a “differential response” model to suspicions of child abuse, where the relevant agencies engage with the family at an early stage to address any concerns raised, rather than focusing on trying to establish whether there has been abuse or not.
In relation to child protection and the criminal justice system, he recommends legislative change rather than a constitutional amendment to deal with the issue of under-age sex, which emerged as a proposal following the Supreme Court ruling. This should include measures to exclude non-exploitative sexual behaviour between peers from the criminal justice system, he says.
Lawyers and judges involved in cases concerning the protection of children should have special training, he states.
Mr Shannon’s two earlier reports dealt with the issue of “soft information” on people who may be a risk to children, though not convicted of crimes, and with how to deal with the issue of protection of children from sexual predators.