Children’s groups and social workers have called for greater emphasis on the early assessment of children at risk to help protect their safety and welfare.
This follows articles in today's Irish Times that reported hundreds of urgent child protection reports are not being assessed or followed up, leaving many young people at a high risk of abuse or neglect.
Details of internal social work files show that highly vulnerable children are not receiving any response from frontline child protection workers due to heavy case loads and understaffing.
Barnardos said the assessment of potential risk was the least any child should be able to expect from a system that is continuing to struggle to respond to child protection concerns.
“The cases referenced by social workers are very serious and by any standards require a response from the system charged with responsibility for child welfare,” said the children’s charity’s chief executive, Fergus Finlay.
“We cannot underestimate the challenges faced by social workers on the front line every day. However, there can be no ambiguity about the necessity of timely assessments when concerns are raised about the welfare of a child.”
While resources were a problem for all public services, Mr Finlay said political leaders must examine where our priorities lie regarding the allocation of resources.
“It is hard to argue that any services are as important as those that seek to protect very vulnerable children from harm,” he said.
The Health Service Executive has acknowledged there are gaps in child protection but points out that it has begun a three-year reform programme to improve services.
It says some 200 additional social workers have been hired on foot of the recommendations of the Ryan report into clerical abuse of young people.
Last weekend, Gordon Jeyes, the HSE’s national director for child and family services, acknowledged the culture in the HSE was “appalling” and that a textbook could be written about the executive. “If it was possible to get it wrong, they got it wrong,” Mr Jeyes said.
In addition to problems with resources, the Irish Association of Social Workers said recent high profile abuse cases had contributed to significant increases in referrals to social workers.
In some areas, staff say the number of abuse or neglect concerns has risen by at least 50 per cent over the same period last year.
The association says many staff are faced with overwhelming case loads, while unofficial recruitment bans to cover staff on leave means they are unable to respond to significant numbers of referrals.
Ineke Durville, the organisation’s spokeswoman, said while recruitment of extra social workers had helped, staffing levels in social services were still considerably behind those in many other jurisdictions.
In interviews with The Irish Times, social work teams in several parts of the State say they are being forced to ignore potentially serious reports of suspected abuse or neglect due to heavy workloads and under-staffing.
Among the kinds of urgent cases outlined in social work files which are not receiving a social work response include:
A 10-year-old who is self-harming and expressing suicidal thoughts. This child is also very aggressive towards other children and the mother appears unable to cope.
A young teenager who is being neglected and has been found in the company of older men, with concerns she may be sexually abused.
A boy with apparent mental health problems whose behaviour is eccentric and whose mother is not responding to appointments with psychological or mental health services. His school has expressed serious concerns about him.
A 13-year-old girl who has not been to school for a number of years and whose mother is neglecting her and is unable to cope.
