Rights group: Put our children first to end poverty
“We have said over and over again that early childhood development, and the enabling of children to get the very most from their school years, is the key to ending child poverty,” he said.
Mr Finlay, speaking at Muintir na Tire’s annual conference in Ballykisteen, Co Tipperary, said the child in the 21st century, almost irrespective of status or income, was going to face a great many challenges.
These would be compounded for children who grew up in poverty, or as a victim of discrimination or as second-class citizens.
“If we are to value childhood in our newfound affluence and prosperity, it is time that we begin to debate seriously the possibility of putting the child first in everything we do, and that includes in our Constitution. Maybe we should stop paying lip service to cherishing and give our children some rights instead,” he said.
Mr Finlay said many more children had been born outside marriage in recent years, nearly a third of them in 2001, although half of those children were born to a couple living together.
The number of children born to teenage mothers was small, and the pattern hadn’t changed significantly over the last 30 years. What had changed was that teenage mothers were no longer likely to marry as a result of pregnancy.
“We know that one in seven children grow up with one parent only, usually a mother, and that those children are at a significantly greater risk of poverty. And we know too that one in nine of all children in Ireland now lives in consistent poverty. There is of course significant overlap between those figures,” he said.
Pointing out that children were growing up in a society tarnished by child abuse and which was becoming almost value-free, he said: “We’ve largely abandoned a set of values that had many negative features, but have replaced it with nothing at all, except perhaps the worship of materialism.”
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