Tag: ombudsman

HSE must co-operate in full with Children’s Ombudsman

6th May 2009

The refusal of the HSE to co-operate with the investigation by the Ombudsman for Children into the handling of the Child Protection Audit strongly suggests that the culture of secrecy, procrastination and obfuscation is alive and well in the HSE.

Claims by the HSE that they have indeed provided Ms Logan with all the documentation she required to conduct this investigation simply do not stand up to scrutiny. Ms Logan has catalogued in detail the requests that she has made to the HSE for various files and documents, and it is manifestly clear that they have come up short.

The HSE’s insistence, based on legal concerns that are at best spurious, that communication between the two agencies be conducted through senior counsel, is simply bizarre. Ms Logan has given the HSE every opportunity to engage with the process, only to be rebuffed at every hand’s turn.

The HSE’s claim that the interests of ‘third parties’ have to be recognised and taken on board, needs clarification. To which third parties is the HSE referring? And why must the interests of these third parties take precedence over the statutory right of the Ombudsman for Children to have access to the relevant documents?

I welcome the intimation by the HSE that they will endeavour to communicate with the Ombudsman for Children today, but it really should not have come to this.

It seems that despite all that has happened in recent years the culture of transparency and accountability has still not taken hold in the HSE.

In conducting these investigations, the Ombudsman for Children is obliged by law to have regard to the best interests of the child and nothing, particularly not the HSE, should be allowed stand in her way.

Child protection investigation a very serious matter

20th November 2008

The decision by Children’s Ombudsman Emily Logan to launch an investigation into the implementation of Child Protection Guidelines must be treated as a very serious matter indeed.

It must be a cause of major concern that Ms Logan feels that she has no option but to take this course of action. It is of particular worry that there seems to be some considerable weight of information, opinion and correspondence being brought to Ms Logan’s attention indicating that all is not well.

Once again, the operation of the Health Service Executive, the statutory agency responsible for the implementation of the Children First Guidelines, and the Department of Health and Children are to come under the microscope. References by Ms Logan to non-implementation by the HSE of the guidelines in some instances are alarming, and all the agencies involved must give every possible support to the Ombudsman in her investigation.

Ms Logan seems concerned that that these guidelines are being breached. If this turns out to be the case there is a strong argument that the guidelines should be established on a statutory basis.

Today’s development paints a bleak picture of the extent to which children are being failed by this government. We already know that social work teams are considerably under-resourced, and thanks to the HSE staff recruitment embargos and cutbacks just about every one of them is operating well below full staff complement. Local child protection teams simply don’t have the resources they require to make early interventions, in order to prevent a problem in a family escalating into a crisis.

When you consider the massive backlogs in many areas of the country, the lack of an out-of-hours service, and the lack of specialist residential places for children with challenging behaviour, the scale of the problem is massive.

More :: Read the statement from the Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan
More :: Ombudsman to investigate child protection (Irish Times)