Plans could be in place by the end of the year that would make it easier for children who have been in care to secure access to housing and education, the minister for children said.

Adversarial legal systems, the lottery of children’s needs and deeds, talk of overhauling aspects of Ireland’s care system — in many ways Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald and the head of the new Child and Family Agency, Gordon Jeyes, are reading from the same notebook. But not always.

A senior member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has questioned whether Irish laws on smacking mean parents can be good role models for their children.