Minister Roderic O’Gorman has flatly denied suggestions that the ‘gap or delay’ in funding the Child Law Project “is effectively an attempt to lean on the Child Law Project and to tell it to tone it down and stop being so critical of the State.”
The suggestion was put to the minister by TD Paul Murphy in the Dáil earlier today.
Deputy Murphy said that while the Child Law Project “has done extremely important work in shining a light on the multiple ways this State fails children, especially vulnerable children,” there has, been no reporting of childcare proceedings since June “because the Minister ended funding for the Child Law Project.”
In response minister O’Gorman stated that his department renews the court reporting project periodically through a competitive tender process and that the current iteration of the court reporting project from November 2021 to 31 October 2024, will have seen funding totalling €600,000 provided to the Child Law Project.
“My Department is currently prioritising the development of a new procurement process and intends that a new phase of court reporting will commence in January of next year,” the minister said.
The minister also stated that he has asked his departmental officials to prioritise the new tendering process and that he is confident reporting will be back in January of next year.
Responding, deputy Murphy noted that the minister’s answer begged the question as to why there is this delay which was foreseeable He went on to cite numerous examples of Child Law Project reporting including a case where a “Court hears of a ‘spectacular example of statutory agencies not working together’ in case of autistic teenager” and “Judge joins CAMHS as notice party to explain why a child on priority list for over 18 months had not received any service”.
He also referred to a case where a “Large number of cases [were] re-entered in Dublin District Court because [of no allocated social worker”, and a news report which led: “Special care system ‘in crisis’, lack of special care beds ‘a tsunami about to reach shore and nothing is being done’ – High Court judge”.
He also read into the Dáil a case where the court heard of the lack of special care bed for boy missing in care – and another where no bed had been found for a very vulnerable girl under special care order; with an allegation she had been raped while in care, and a fear of sexual exploitation. In that instance, the Judge said: ‘This is the worst case I have ever come across.”
Minister O’Gorman said that one of the responses he has made to the work the project has been to convene a new committee of statutory agencies:
“We are bringing together the HSE, Tusla, An Garda Síochána, my Department and the Department of Health because it is too often the case that the types of headlines the Deputy has read out on the experiences children have faced have been the result of State agencies not working together. State agencies are minding their own patches and are not prepared to step outside that in urgent situations. That is why we are bringing together this committee,” he said.
Last week, the Minister told Gript’s Ben Scallan when asked why the funding was cut off that “we can’t just extend their funding” and that while he believed it is an “extremely important project”, there had been a delay in publishing a tendering process.