Before appointing a Czar/ Supremo the Minister might reflect some more. There is no miracle worker inside the country or outside who on their own will have "the capacity to do an X-ray of the Service". If the Minister is looking for Super heroes from Planet Krypton then he needs to stop reading comics.
The solutions to the problems in children's services are much more mundane than that. They begin and end with societal ownership of the fact that a share of our child population are at acute risk of harm.
As the problems of child welfare are many and complex so the solutions required are mundane yet imaginative, requiring persistence , changing over time and can never be perfected. Just now we could do with the presentation of factual information as to how child welfare problems come about and present themselves; the steps HSE takes to address these and the limitations on HSE.
What has clearly emerged of late is that in many cases that the HSE does not have adequate answers to to that factual information at a corporate level. Where it does have such access it gives the strong impression of wishing to conceal it. If that is so then who balances the issue of legitimate public interest against the right to individual privacy and corporate self interest in non disclosure?
Right now it seems to me the changes most urgently required are an attitude of openness and humility on the part of Government and HSE. This attitude needs to be combined with a willingness to promote debate in the wider community about shared responsibility for our children at risk. The proposed referendum on children's rights provides the oppurtunity for that.
Add in to that mix focused use of existing authority and resources already available. Together that should reveal what new resources human and physical may be required going forward.
Creation of yet another supremo post with an external appointment is not in itself an answer. The solution lies within ourselves as a society, not in conjuring tricks performed by magicians from out of town who we expect to resolve our homegrown ambivalence.
