'Whole of Government' approach needed to protect at-risk children, says Ombudsman

Vivienne Clarke

The Children’s Ombudsman, Dr Niall Muldoon, has endorsed the comments of former District Court judge Dermot Simms, about the necessity for a “whole of Government” approach for at-risk children.

In a strongly worded letter to four Government Ministers, Tusla, the State Claims Agency and the Ombudsman for Children — dated May 17th, 2023, when he was still on the bench — Mr Simms said he had the “utmost concern for the immediate predicament and welfare of children...in the care of the State”.

Dr Muldoon told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that he had shared similar concerns for a number of years, and two years ago his office had written to the chief executive of Tusla regarding children under 12 who were in care.

Tusla had a policy that children under 12 do not go into residential care, but at that time there were 61 such children, Dr Muldoon said.

His office was also aware of teenagers at risk with very complex situations and complicated issues who were not being dealt with properly.

“We’ve been pushing for many years for inter-agency across State cooperation for these children who are particularly vulnerable.

“You're only talking about 300 maximum and some of them, maybe 200, would be more complex within that. So, again, it should not be beyond our capability to do much better service.”

Dr Muldoon said the judge’s letter was very significant about the need for a whole of Government approach, and for disability services, mental health services, primary care, Gardaí, Tusla and the Department of Education to be involved.

Another issue of concern was unregulated placements, sometimes in hotel rooms, when there was no place available for a child in an emergency situation.

“There's no therapy, there's no access to comforts and safety — that's the short term scenario. Again, they can end up there for weeks, unfortunately, and it's obviously a very expensive scenario as well.”

The issues have been known about for five, 10 years, Dr Muldoon said.

“We should have been buying the buildings. We should have been investing in our infrastructure rather than hiring in. The private setting took off because of the financial economic crisis that we had.

“What we find was, rather than paying pensions and salaries, we would pay higher prices to private enterprises.”