Irish Teacher: Ireland has always cared about its children, but it has abused and neglected them

Jennifer Horgan asks to what extent are we prioritising our children? 

As a country we’ve always ‘cherished’ our children.

A young woman called to our door the other night. She asked if I’d like to support a dog charity. I politely declined.

I like dogs, I do. But I’ve always believed in prioritising the needs of humans first, so I support human-only charities.

Our country has a problem when it comes to prioritising basic needs over other valid but less important issues. As a teacher, I’m in contact with children, so my attention naturally lands there.

It’s not a bad place to start.

We officially committed to protecting children in 1992 by signing up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We were revolutionary long before then — in theory, if not in practice. The democratic programme for the first Dáil addressed children as citizens, not future citizens. This was a considerable statement in the early 20th century when there were no global standards of protection for children.

As a country we’ve always ‘cherished’ our children. We left lamps burning through the night to prevent fairies from stealing them, replacing them with sickly changelings. We placed rowan sticks under pillows, we planted willow trees in our gardens, and we burnt the needles of fir trees to protect mothers and babies. When religion took hold, we protected children from limbo by baptising them as early as possible.

Ireland has always cared about its children, but it has simultaneously abused and neglected them.

For generations unbaptised babies were denied burial. Mother and baby homes were still open in 1992. The last one closed in 1998 — one crucial improvement in the lives of children in Ireland.

Another improvement came when the 31st amendment of the Constitution (Children) Act 2012 was signed into law on April 28, 2015. Of course, until we properly acknowledge how brutal we’ve been to certain children in Church and State care, such positive developments will seem lacking.

But where are we now, in September 2021 when it comes to protecting our young? More specifically, to what extent are we prioritising them?

In terms of Covid, our most recent crisis, we prioritise children’s attendance at school; we do not equally prioritise their safety. We currently send children into schools without masks, adequate ventilation, or antigen tests.

A GP told me this week that the Covid situation ‘will never be perfect’. Adults are vaccinated, so we’ve put an end to contact tracing in schools. NPHET is disbanding whilst principals struggle to cope.

Children getting sick isn’t perfect but we’re willing to accept it.

When it comes to broader priorities in education, Ireland now ranks lowest in the OECD for investment in education. Pádraig Pearse, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916, defined the purpose of education as an effort ‘to help the child to be their own true and best self’. It’s an effort we don’t value. In 2021, one-in-four Irish children has an additional need. We don’t have the resources to provide their fundamental right to education. Schools are ordered not to reduce children’s timetables. They’re depicted as monstrous when the underlying fact is they can’t cope.

But schools are far from blameless in other respects. Many opt out of providing adequate sex education to protect the school’s ethos. Surveys carried out across universities highlight alarmingly high rates of sexual harassment and assault among students. Protection from sexual abuse is still not prioritised in many schools.

Irish students report unusually high levels of anxiety, yet investment in mental health has dropped from 16% of the overall health budget in the 1980s to 6% in 2020. This year saw a continued under-investment. We line our bridges with teddy bears to tell young people they are loved. We do this because our system tells them, in its skewed priorities, something different. According to Social Justice Ireland more than a quarter of people living in poverty in Ireland are children. One-in-nine Irish children lives in sustained poverty.

Focus Ireland informs us that ‘the number of homeless families has increased by 232% since July 2014 when the monthly figures started being published. Almost one third of people in emergency accommodation are children.’ I’ve listened to a lot of prattle on the radio recently, and I’ve read a lot in newspapers about arguments adults are having with each other. From text messages to unaccepted invitations, the first week back for our government has seemed to lack any sense of priority.

George Bernard Shaw said, ‘The right to liberty begins not at the age of 21 years but 21 seconds.’ The clock is ticking.