Chairperson: John Brennan

Secretary: Kristen Murphy

SIGA AGM 2009; John Brennan remained on as honory Chairperson. Kristen Murphy was elected honorary Secretary:

Meetings; The Special Interest Group met monthly over the past year in the Royal Hospital Donnybrook. The meetings have been  well-attended and generally lively affairs. We have welcomed social workers employed in an ever-widening circle of agencies and hope that this trend continues.

Representation; Patricia Daly took over from Anette O’Callaghan as the SIGA representative on the IASW Council.

Issues of concern addressed by members of the SIGA during the year; Most, if not all of the issues raised in last year’s report continued to spring up as agenda items during the year – community social work posts; the effects of the severe and continuing reduction in many services; the inconsistencies ans inequities within the health and social care systems amongst others, however, one of the biggest changes in the history of the care system in Ireland occured in October 2009 when the Nursing Home Support Scheme came into being. 

It would be fair to say that the Nursing Home Support Scheme was launched while still a work in progress. The scheme is highly complex and often daunting for applicants. Many issues have arisen in the months since the introduction date, not least amongst these, the slowness in processing apllications. On the positive side, aplplicants have more choice and pay according to their means.

The Health Information and Quality Authority’s (HIQA) National Quality Standards for Residential Care Settings for Older People in Ireland now has an inspection process in place.

With the country’s financial circumstances in such a bad way, the HSE continued their cutbacks in home care grants, home help and other community based services for older persons. Despite a small amount of extra funding for home care packages toward the end of the year, these cutbacks are now widespread and they are having a serious negative effect on older persons and their carers.

Advocacy continued as a topic this year with the introduction of the HSE’s National Advocacy Programme in residential care units. This programme involves the provision of volunteers as part-time independent advocates in these units. Members of SIGA with direct experience of this proposal raised concerns about the role of social worker as an advocate for the user of services and the interface between social work and independent advocate. Concern was also raised about the nature of many complex cases that come social work’s way and ability of voluntary part-time workers to engage appropriately.  

The Draft Scheme of Mental Capacity Bill (2008) of which we have heard little since last year may be moving towards the Bill stage (as the title suggests, it is merely a ‘scheme’ now). This will be a welcome develpoment if it is true.  

Despite their introduction a number of years ago, the Elder Abuse Senior Caseworker posts have not advanced in any consistent way and many remain without appropriate line management structures. This situation has created difficulties for the Caseworkers in developing the service.  

Projects; The sub-group on ‘assessment’ continued to work on a draft assessment document during the year. A sub-group on ‘advocacy and social work’ prepared a policy paper for IASW. 

Community based social work services; Community social work posts were established in more health board areas during the year. However, as with many other services, the process appeared to be ad-hoc and the SIGA is concerned that structures, such as line management, have not been established in any consistent manner. In many areas, there are no community social work services for adults and vacant posts remain unfilled in other areas. This latter situation puts further pressure on what remaining social workers there are.  

Finally; Many thanks to the Royal Hospital Donnybrook for once again facilitating our meetings and to Carme, Social Work Secretary in the hospital for her continued administrative support.