WHO CARES?

THE TASK Force on Child Care Services was established in 1974 by the Tainaiste and Minister for Health at the time, Brendan Corish, TD, on the basis that "responsibility for children's services being distributed between three Government departments presented serious obstacles to reform" and so he looked forward to "over-hauling radically both the law and services for children and to modernising a system that was so obviously out-dated."

Nineteen years later Child Care Services are still divided between three government departments, we have yet to see new Juvenile Justice legislation appear before the Dail and The Child Care Act 1991 (described as 'a major and long overdue piece of legislation') is as yet largely unimplemented

appalled

Streetwise National Coalition is an umbrella body of organisations and individuals working with children and young people and concerned with child care issues in Ireland. Eoin O'Sullivan, the Research and Information Officer for Streetwise is appalled at the time that it has taken this country's legislative bodies to enact legislation that was seen as essential nearly nineteen years ago. Moreover, he maintains that despite the long overdue achievement in passing a Child Care Act the vast majority of its sections have still not been implemented.

"The impetus for the reform of the Irish child care system goes back to 1966, and despite a series of reports highlighting the inadequacy of the 1908 Children Act dealing with the complex needs of children today, it has taken over two decades for new child care legislation to emerge," he points out. "And even now despite the delay on the part of the state in introducing new legislation only a minority of the sections of the new act have actually been implemented, and those that have are not adequately resourced!"

To emphasise his argument, Eoin points to Section 5 of the current Child Care Act which places a statutory obligation on Health Boards to provide 'suitable' accommodation for homeless children.

"In practice, because of a lack of funding, homeless children as young as twelve are placed in bed and breakfast accommodation, held in Garda stations overnight or placed in hospitals. Does anybody seriously believe that such forms of accommodation constitute suitable accommodation?!

"Overall," Eoin observes, "while it must be welcomed that sections of the Child Care Act are gradually being implemented, it is of concern that the majority of the sections implemented to date are primarily administrative sections and do not assist children in need. After two years of enactment the Act has changed virtually nothing for deprived children in Ireland. The only child legislation implemented over the past two decades has primarily affected the middle classes (such as the Adoption Act of 1988 and the Status of Children Act of 1987). For children most in need the ongoing neglect continues."

The proposed changes suggested by the 1991 Act, notwithstanding, Ireland's child care legislation is still dominated by the Children Act of 1908. "An archaic piece of British legislation," Eoin maintains.

"Undoubtedly it was a watershed in child care thinking at the time, but it is totally unsuitable and inadequate for the complex and ever-changing needs of children and young people in contemporary Ireland.

"In practise this Act allows for the incarceration of fifteen-year-old children in Mountjoy Prison. And although it has not been used for a long time now, it even allows for children to be whipped! The fact that this outmoded legislation remains on the statute books is symptomatic of the neglect of vulnerable children in Ireland.

"It is all the more ironic in a country where such a strong emphasis is placed on the notion of 'family' that the most vulnerable members of the family unit, children, have been and continue to be neglected by the state."

negligence

As a result of the investigation into the Kilkenny rape and incest case and a subsequent report, the current Minister for Health, Brendan Howlin, has promised that the Act will be fully implemented by the end of 1996. To realise this objective he has allocated £5 million for 1993, and a further £30 million to cover the period 1994-96. Will this not go a large distance in eradicating the failings of the Child Care Services as they exist now?

"Of the first £5 million allocation," Eoin O'Sullivan contends, "the bulk will be spent on child abuse preventative programmes; this means that at best the remainder can simply place some existing child care services on an adequate financial level. In other words nothing new can emerge from the allocation of that money. Hopefully it will mean that existing under-resourced services will achieve adequate funding, but no more than that. And currently it looks highly unlikely that any further sections of the Act will be implemented this year."

The question, then, as we commemorate the second anniversary of the passing of the Child Care Act, 1991, is what has changed for children at risk and in need in Ireland? According to Eoin O'Sullivan: "very little."

"Is this what people in Ireland want?" Eoin demands. "Are people prepared to tolerate a child care system that is uncoordinated, fragmented and governed by the archaic 1908 Children Act? I suspect not. Yet, the reluctance of successive governments towards this issue has demonstrated a negligence of the needs of deprived children. 'How much longer must children wait?' was a slogan in 1981 regarding the need for new child care legislation. Why is the slogan still relevant today?"

Over to you Minister.

Streetwise National Coalition can be contacted at 26 Upper Sherard Street, Dublin 1. Tel: (01) 8744864.

• Dan Oggly