UN issues three-year child welfare deadline

A UNITED NATIONS committee has given the Government three years to make major changes to policy, legislation and funding for children’s welfare.

A strongly worded second report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child it said it was “deeply disappointed” with how the Government had involved children in the criminal justice system.

Minister for Children Brian Lenihan said that while he will act on most of its recommendations, he stood by the right of the Irish Government to decide its own policy, particularly with regards to holding children as young as 10 responsible for more serious crimes.

He said: “It is very easy for a committee sitting over in Geneva to take a particular view because they don’t have to take responsibility, but I do and I am not prepared to say that a murder or rape carried out by somebody of that age was not a crime.”

In an 18-page document the UN committee praised the Government for some of the changes it made in the last decade but called for a fundamental shift in the emphasis of the Constitution.

It was dissatisfied the recommendations it made in 1998 had yet to be properly addressed, particularly in the way children’s rights play second fiddle in the Irish legal system.

It said: “The committee urges the state party to make every effort to address the recommendations issued in the concluding observations on the initial report which have not yet been fully implemented.”

Many of the stakeholders involved in children’s rights have expressed pleasant surprise at the specific nature of the 81-point report. It had been feared the committee’s impressions would be blurred by the “charming” account Mr Lenihan gave in Geneva earlier this month.

Instead, the committee called for an end to the detention of 16- and 17-year-olds in St Patrick’s Institution, a round-the-clock social worker service for at-risk children and a ban on corporal punishment. The report demanded the Government allocate resources for the protection of children’s rights “as a matter of priority” and was unhappy with the pace of reform.

It said: “The committee welcomes steps taken to further develop the legal framework but remains concerned about the slow pace of enactment of specific provisions that hampers effective implementation of the legal framework.”

Mr Lenihan welcomed the content of the report and restated his commitment to finalise a “root and branch” review of the constitution within “a matter of weeks”.