ANALYSIS:The Monageer report points to serious gaps in the child protection and welfare system but the Government, it appears, will allow them remain, writes CARL O'BRIEN
OF ALL the questions surrounding the tragic deaths of the Dunne family two years ago, one has stood out: could the authorities have intervened sooner and averted the tragedy? Yesterday’s report confirms what we suspected all along: it’s impossible to say if the tragedy could have been averted. It states that if gardaí or social services had called to the house during the weekend they died, it is “likely that a tragedy would not have been averted”.
That conclusion is hardly a surprise. Even the best-resourced of social work services can never be expected to prevent a suicide or tragic death. But where the inquiry report is of much greater significance is on whether authorities did everything possible prior to that weekend to help prevent such a tragedy. And whether sufficient support was available to a family which was clearly under strain.
On this point, the report’s findings are deeply disturbing. It points to serious failures across the system, such as communication problems between the gardaí and social services; major issues internally within the Health Service Executive (HSE); and the lack of an out-of-hours social work service to ensure there was a proper response to child protection and welfare concerns.
There were numerous indications the family was at some form of risk. Yet, the inquiry report says it was difficult to understand that many health or social work professionals who dealt with the family had not felt they required “special attention”.
The system of communication within the HSE in Wexford relating to the Dunne family appeared “disjointed” and contributed to the failure to identify them as a people in need of extra support from health and social services.
In addition, it acknowledged that a fundamental problem in responding to concerns over the family was the State’s failure to provide an out-of-hours social work service to ensure a response to all serious child protection and welfare concerns.
Also, while there were many services of the health board and other agencies working with the family, the inquiry team did not identify any one person who had access to all of the information.
To social workers on the front lines in other parts of the State, the findings will not come as a surprise: they face similar frustration on a daily basis. Child protection and welfare services are creaking at the seams, working against a backdrop of an under-resourced and fragmented health service.
Many social work teams are saddled with unmanageable case-loads and don’t have sufficient time for the painstaking and resource-hungry work in determining the level of risk facing an individual child.
Such evidence is rightly needed to take children into care, but the lack of an out-of-hours service means that social workers can only respond to emergencies between the hours of nine to five. Emergencies, unfortunately, don’t happen between office hours.
These shortcomings mean gardaí are forced to act as de facto social workers outside office hours, with only the most extreme option available to them: taking children immediately into care.
It would be reassuring if there was a sense that the Government acknowledged these serious failures; that it had a plan in place finally to ensure everything possible was being done to protect the most vulnerable of children; or that it was committed to building a social work services focused more on supporting rather than just policing families.
Sadly, there was little sign of it yesterday. Minister for Children Barry Andrews talked about putting in place the “building blocks” for an out-of-hours service. But what’s being promised is not a national out-of-hours social work service, the main recommendation of the inquiry. Instead, we will get a a foster care service in which gardaí will continue to act as de facto social workers, with little or no access to qualified and experienced social workers.
Incidentally, the Government shelved a proper social work service in order to save €15 million, the same amount which the HSE paid out to “consultants” last year.
We are also promised yet more reviews about introducing standardised approaches to responding to families in crisis, ensuring that children-first guidelines are followed by gardaí and reviewing public health nursing.
There is no sense that the Government is prepared to reform social work services, to ensure that it deals with cases through early intervention and family support rather than funnelling millions into emergency interventions. As it is, the emergency nature of social work means intervention will inevitably come too late for many children, and families will see social workers as threats rather then supports. As Prof Pat Dolan of NUI Galway and Unesco has noted: do we really want a social work system which polices families rather than supports them?
In the absence of this kind of fundamental change, the gaps will remain. Social work teams will continue to be unable to respond to hundreds of cases of abuse because they are overloaded with work. Children with mental health problems will wait years for assessment. And families under strain, who sometimes need only the simplest forms of support, will only come to the attention of health authorities when it is too late.
Carl O’Brien Social Affairs Correspondent of
The Irish Times