State’s child welfare record criticised

ONE of the country’s largest teaching unions and the opposition have backed criticism of the Government’s record on child welfare.

The Children’s Rights Alliance yesterday published its first Report Card on the Government’s performance in four key areas — health, education, material wellbeing and safeguarding childhood — where it received a D grade overall.

In response, the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland claimed cutbacks announced last year will have a devastating impact on young people. Fine Gael Seanad spokesperson on health and children, Frances Fitzgerald, said the report was a “damning verdict”.

However, Children’s Minister Barry Andrews defended the Government, saying “real strides” had been made.

The assessment panel were particularly critical of its failings in areas such as early childhood care and education and primary care health provision, claiming the Government’s performance was “barely acceptable” and “unacceptable” respectively.

The health care failings, as revealed in yesterday’s Irish Examiner, gave the Government its lowest mark with a D-, and the alliance’s chief executive Jillian van Turnhout said there was “a significant gap between the rhetoric and the reality.

“Unfortunately the [Government’s] performance is deeply disappointing,” adding that the Government’s commitments had “little more value than the paper they are written on.”

Responding, Mr Andrews said: “While I fully accept that further progress is necessary, I believe that we have made real strides in improving child wellbeing standards and measures.”

But Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness, one of the external assessment panel on the report, said the Government needed to offend better-off voters by changing the way resources are distributed among schools.

Children’s Rights Alliance chairperson Dr Noirin Hayes said the issue was not about needing more money but properly ring-fencing and spending funds to fulfil existing commitments.