Incorrect child death figures 'not intentional'

CHILDREN IN STATE CARE:INCORRECT INFORMATION given to the Public Accounts Committee (Pac) on the numbers of children who died while in State care "was not knowingly or intentionally provided", the HSE has said.

At a meeting of the committee yesterday, chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm suggested that after five years and many internal reviews in the organisation, what might be needed now is “a review of what our HSE structure is”.

In March, the HSE told the committee that 20 children had died in State care over a 10-year period. The figure rose to 37 in May and last week, it was revised to 188.

Laverne McGuinness, national director of integrated services at the HSE, told the committee yesterday when she appeared before it that in March she supplied the most up to date and accurate information available to her.

The figure increased to 37 in May because there had been additional deaths since the figures were compiled and some children who had died of natural causes had been initially omitted.

Ms McGuinness said the numbers increased again in June because Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews extended the criteria to include people up to the age of 21 and to include those known to the social welfare services, but not in care.

She believed a public statement accusing her personally of providing “wrong, untrue and inaccurate information” was unfair.

She defended the HSE’s refusal to provide some information to the independent review group, set up to examine the deaths. “What we have refused to do is provide information that would cause us to break the law,” she said, pointing out the in camera ruling in childcare cases.

Prof Drumm acknowledged there had been “huge unevenness across the system” and it was a challenge to get an even performance. There were currently 1,200 social workers and a further 450 were needed, he said. Interviews were being carried out next week and they were going to appoint 200 more in the coming months.

He said that in an ideal world, child protection services should be provided in an integrated way, but there was no doubt if the service was separated out and resources given to it, improvements might be seen more quickly.

“We do a lot of reviews, maybe what we need is a review of what our HSE structure is, has it delivered anything above and beyond what the older system did, is it a better structure, does it have faults, what can we fix, where does childcare fit in that?”

Committee chairman Bernard Allen told Ms McGuinness he did not believe anyone thought she knowingly provided the wrong information. His concern was with a childcare system that led her to think the figure was 20 when it was 37.