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Children’s welfare organisations said today they were disappointed at reports that the Health Service Executive (HSE) has abandoned plans for an out-of-hours social care service for troubled children due to spending cuts.
Media reports said the plan to open a national call centre and to introduce 24-hour on-call social care teams, had been halted due to “cost containment” measures.
Children’s charity Barnardos said such cuts were the “worst possible form of cost savings” as they would hit the most vulnerable members of society.
Director of advocacy Norah Gibbons said that failure to provide such a service could result in children being placed in “extremely dangerous situations”.
“In Barnardos we know that family crises do not just happen between the hours of 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. If we are serious about protecting children, we need a properly resourced 24 hour professional social care service that includes both an early response mechanism where concerns are raised, as well as a crisis response to emergency situations as they arise.”
She said no one wanted to see children sleeping in A&E departments or police stations, as a 15-year-old boy recently did, because there is no care plan in place for troubled youngsters outside of normal working hours.
The Children’s Rights Alliance said abandoning plans to introduce access to emergency social work services for children at risk was “wholly unacceptable”.
Chief executive Jillian van Turnhout said: “Scrapping these plans suggests something worrying - those making decisions in the HSE do not understand their statutory obligations in the area of child protection under the Child Care Act, 1991 and the Children Act, 2001.
“The State’s social work services are a priority front line service and must be sufficient to meet their statutory obligations. This decision is a sad indictment of Ireland’s treatment of its children and, as a nation, we should be deeply ashamed. The alliance urges the HSE to look again at its budget.”
A report in today’s Irish Independentsaid the HSE had confirmed the plans were not going ahead.
The HSE is expected to issue a statement this afternoon.
Elaine Edwards, Irish Times
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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0808/breaking52.htm
© 2008 irishtimes.com
