Analysis:There is an urgent need to provide properly resourced support to families in crisis, writes Carl O'Brien.
In the same weekend as the Dunne family died, social workers gathered in Dublin to demand properly resourced out-of-hours supports for families in crisis.
The frustration of social workers and gardaí who are forced to work within a patchy, under-funded system for dealing with emergency care cases, has been growing in recent years.
The shortcomings in the service mean that gardaí are forced to act as de facto social workers with only the most extreme option available to them: taking children immediately into care.
In the case of the Dunne family, it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions as to whether the State failed to offer adequate support to the family, or if agencies acted negligently by not acting sooner.
And there is nothing to suggest that a national, comprehensive out-of-hours service would have avoided these deaths. But its existence would at least have helped ensure that everything that could have been done for the family would have been done.
Such a service, say health professionals and social workers, would clarify ambiguities over who is responsible for care and provide a greater number of options for protecting people at risk.
In the absence of a such a service, State authorities were faced with two possible options over the weekend, as provided for under the Childcare Act (1991).
The Health Service Executive (HSE) could have applied for an emergency care order from the District Court, on the basis that the children were at immediate and serious risk. However, the next court sitting was likely to have been on Monday or Tuesday.
Alternatively, the Garda could have entered the house, without a warrant, and removed the children.
In reality, gardaí only take such extreme steps on the basis of advice and information available to social workers or health authorities. In this case, it is clear that the HSE did not have any such information on the family.
A two-hour visit from a public health nurse for routine developmental checks on the children on Friday did not raise any concerns.
While the HSE's child care manager correctly advised a superintendent of the Garda's power to remove the child from the home, there was no other meaningful support available to gardaí from the social services.
While the inquiry announced by the Government yesterday is likely to focus on whether the HSE or the Garda did all they could in these circumstances, it would be highly regrettable if the wider and more pressing need for an national out-of-hours service for families is ignored.