10,992 entries for Inspections - State

The view of the Department of Education was that: the laudable purpose which the Kennedy Committee had in mind would be more appropriately achieved by establishing an efficient and politically directed system of co-ordination between the various Departments under which each would continue to play its existing specialist role as embodied in the concepts ‘Care’, ‘Education’ and ‘Justice’. To obtain the full benefits of specialisation, it is possible that services at present administered in one of the Departments for historical reasons might be more properly located in another. In the long-term, a re-arrangement of responsibility for services concerned preponderantly either with ‘education’ or ‘care’ may be necessary as between the Departments of Education and Health. This, for example, might involve the transfer of responsibility for residential homes (the former industrial schools) to the Department of Health. In the short term, however, the Minister for Education considers the present would not be an appropriate time for such a transfer. Many of the services concerned with deprived children are at present in the course of rapid development and the Minister fears that the task of undertaking a transfer of functions at this juncture, with all that this implies in the way of staff re-organisation and re-familiarisation, might retard rather than accelerate the immediate improvement and expansion of services.

To achieve these objectives, the Minister argued that ‘the first task in order of priority, an inter-departmental committee be established to update all legislation relating to child-care and consider such wider policy issues as may arise in the context of such legislation’. He secondly, proposed the establishment of ‘a permanent committee (the ‘operations committee’) to be set up to co-ordinate day-to-day implementation of policy. The Committee would be representative of the Departments of Health, Education and Justice and would, in the first place, be a formalisation of close contacts at present being developed between the three Departments.’ He finally proposed that: an independent advisory body at national level be set up as recommended in the Kennedy Report except that, at least pending the completion of the work of the legislation committee, the question of its having statutory powers should be postponed. The function of this committee for the time being would be to advise on specific matters referred to them by the legislation or operations committees or by the Government itself.

The draft memo was circulated to various Departments who responded to the proposals outlined. The Attorney General noted that the memo proposed to reject the recommendation of the Kennedy Report, but that he believed ‘that the balance of the argument favours the Kennedy proposals’. The Minister for Public Service: considered that a decision in principle should now be taken to allocate main responsibility in relation to child care to a single Department; the balance of logic and opinion suggests that the Department chosen should be the Department of Health. The first advantage of such a decision would be to indicate that the Government is committed to an approach based on ‘care’ rather than law enforcement in relation to children at risk and would direct the attention of the proposed inter-Departmental legislation Committee to the need for such an approach in dealing with the reform of legislation relating to children. Secondly, it would place responsibility for co-ordination on an area of Government under a single Minister rather than on a Committee answerable to no single authority: the establishment of a permanent committee to co-ordinate day to day implementation of policy, would, in the Minister’s view, tend to blur lines of responsibility.

In addition, ‘because of the considerable organisation implications involved, a representative from the Department of Public Service should be included on this inter-departmental Committee’.

The Minister for Health argued that the ‘Government’s objective should be to institute, as quickly as possible, a unified comprehensive children’s service, with administrative structures which reflect the needs of the children concerned. A new Children’s Act is required to provide a modern legal framework for the reformed services’. To achieve this, the Minister stated: that the inter-departmental committee approach, even with the inclusion of outside experts, does not offer the best hope of a speedy review of law and policy in relation to children. Such a committee, because of the other commitments of those concerned, tend to be both slow and cumbersome....the Minister for Health believes that reform proposals can best be instituted by setting up a full-time task force, comprising representatives of the Departments concerned and selected outside experts. In all, he would not envisage more than ten task force members. This group would work directly to the Tanaiste and Minister for Health, and its function would be to prepare a new Children’s Bill and other reform proposals which he would bring to the Cabinet for decision. The task force would remain in existence until such time as the necessary reform proposals are laid before the Cabinet by the Tanaiste. It is envisaged that this should not take longer than 3-4 months, if the group is set up on a full-time basis....The Minister believes that unnecessary delay and confusion in planning will only be avoided if one Minister plays a lead role and he feels that he, as Minister for Health, with responsibility for a wide range of children’s services, should assume this role in planning the necessary reforms.

The Department of Justice foresaw problems with vesting responsibility for children’s services in one Department arguing that such a proposal ignored: the fundamental point that problems of young persons who come in conflict with the law or who are otherwise at risk cannot reasonably be divorced from problems of family stress; and that amongst factors that are relevant to family stress, such matters as housing and social welfare benefits are likely to be of major importance, so the argument for a ‘single department’ for children should logically lead to the conclusion that the Department should also deal with housing, social welfare benefits, not to mention family law, schools and other matters.

In addition, in relation to matters of legislation, it is the experience of the Department of Justice, repeated time and again, that attempts to produce ‘comprehensive’ legislation on what are very complex issues invariably not only prove more difficult (and time consuming) than originally estimated because of the number of unforeseen difficulties which the detailed examination throws up but also run up against the additional and important difficulty that a hold-up on one point means that everything is held up; and, in a matter as complex in its implications as this, there are bound to be very controversial points which will not prove possible to deal with quickly.

However, the Minister was in favour of the establishment of the ‘Operations Committee’, but opposed to the establishment of an advisory committee on the grounds that: it would bring no practical benefit but on the other hand would mean the generation of a constant stream of proposals beyond the capacity of the Government to pay for (and beyond the capacity of available resources to ‘process’ into workable schemes or acceptable legislation even if they were basically acceptable in principle) and that the practical result would be the existence of a Government-sponsored body which was serving only to generate public criticism.

The Department of Education, in reviewing the submissions to the draft memo to Government, noted: that there is a fairly wide divergence in the course of action proposed by each Department. On the question of administration, Departments of Health, Public Service and Attorney General believe that the main responsibility for planning and provision of child-care services should rest with the Minister for Health. Department of Justice, on the other hand, agree with this Department’s view that this is neither logical nor practicable. None of the ‘one-Department’ supporters have defined precisely what they mean by ‘child-care’ and none in effect have answered the point, that, in the nature of things, both the Departments of Education and Justice must continue to be responsible for many services in relation to children.

The Department of Education therefore suggested that the: Department of Health proposal that a full-time task force be set up to complete the job in 3 months is unrealistic. The Department of Justice rightly makes the point that this will be a complex and time-consuming task, which will call for controversial decisions. This is confirmed by own experience in making comparatively small amendments to the children’s acts. Current public controversies emphasise how difficult it will to be to produce legislation which will satisfy all shades of opinion in Church and State and meet constitutional requirements.

In light of these difficulties, the Department of Education suggested: A possible way out of the dilemma might be to set up a small full-time working group or task force controlled by a part-time steering committee representative of the Departments concerned plus outside interests. (This might be something on the lines of the OECD study on Investment in Education where a small team of full-time experts from Departments and Universities worked under the direction of a broadly based steering committee). Since this working group would have to seek advice from outside bodies anyway, it would seem reasonable to postpone the setting up of a formal advisory committee until a later stage.

The Department of Education also considered the possible membership of this task force or working group, suggesting that outside expertise was required from ‘fields such as psychology, psychiatry, social sciences, education’ as well as various organisations with an expertise in the area. On the question of chairmanship of the Committee, Mr Ó Maitiú highlighted that would be ‘a crucial issue’ and outlined that: We are not prepared to agree to have it operating under the aegis of the Minister of Health and presumably Dept of Health would be opposed to someone from this Dept as chairman. Would it go to sorting the situation if we proposed a chairman independent of all the Departments. Since law revision will be the task of the committee, I suggest that the Chairman should have a legal background – probably a member of the judiciary.

The Parliamentary Secretary in reply stated that he was ‘favourable to outsiders being involved in law preparation if it is on the basis of strict confidentiality of proceedings and non-publication of recommendations. Does something need to be done to ensure this?’

In the memorandum to Government, the Minister for Education noted that having considered the views of other Departments he remained of the view that the approach suggested by the Inter-Departmental Working party was the most appropriate, and while ‘a full-time task force as proposed by the Minister for Health has its merits, he considers that a time-scale of three months or so is unrealistic’. He proposed therefore that: (1)administrative responsibilities to remain as at present in the short term. (2)An inter-departmental committee to be established under continuing political direction to up-date all the laws relating to child care and to consider such wider policy issues as may arise in the context of such legislation. This Committee to be authorised to set up working parties, which would include experts from outside the public service, to consider specific proposals. (3)A permanent inter-departmental committee on operational co-ordination to be set up. This Committee to promote the establishment of local-co-ordinating committees at health board level, starting with County Child Care teams which would review the position in each area, (4)A national advisory council on child care as recommended in the Kennedy Report.227

However, the view of the Department of Health prevailed and on 11th October 1974 the Government made a decision to firstly allocate to the Minister for Health the main responsibility, including that of co-ordination, in relation to childcare; and secondly authorised the Minister to set up a working party to report within three months on the necessary updating and reform of childcare legislation and of child care services. On 19th October 1974, Mr Brendan Corish, Tanaiste and Minister for Health and Social Welfare issued the following press release: Last week the Government decided that I, as Minister for Health, should have the main responsibility for children’s services in the future. I welcome this decision, since the present arrangements whereby responsibility for children’s services is diffused between three Government Departments presents serious obstacles to reform. I intend to begin work immediately in the following areas. I intend to prepare a new Children’s Bill. Simultaneously, I will review and draw up proposals to improve and extend the services available to children. At the same time, it will be necessary to carry through reforms. To help me in this work, I am immediately setting up a full time task force comprising one representative from each of the Departments concerned with children’s services, together with a number of outside experts...Since the group will work on a full-time basis, I expect that my proposals for reform will be ready within a matter of very few months.228