75% of commitments to children dropped, claims group

THE new Programme for Government has dropped three-quarters of the commitments relating to children contained in an earlier draft, the Children’s Rights Alliance has claimed.

The group said following analysis of the new Programme for Government, agreed last Friday between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, it had found the number of commitments on children’s issues had fallen from 219 to 49.

Key omissions include the amalgamation of the Qualified Child Allowances and the Family Income Supplements in order to develop a “second tier” of income support for poorer families, and a pledge to continue to increase Child Benefit.

Early Intervention and Prevention Programmes for socially and economically disadvantaged communities has also been omitted, the alliance said, as had measures under suicide prevention, including the implementation of recommendations in the Reach Out national strategy.

Maria Corbett of the Children’s Rights Alliance said while some elements of the new programme were to be welcomed, such as the implementation of recommendations in the Ryan Report on clerical sex abuse and various education measures, there was a lack of clarity in several other areas.

In addition to some new commitments, welcomed by the group, there are some “rephrased commitments,” which Ms Corbett said could be interpreted as a “reduced commitment”.

According to its analysis: “These commitments are not new; they were included in the Programme for Government 2007–2012, but the renewed programme either makes them more or less specific, and narrower or broader in scope.”

One example given states: “The 2009 document introduces stricter labelling requirements for alcohol products. This is significantly narrower than the 10 commitments, addressing a variety of aspects of alcohol-related harm, outlined in the 2007 document.”

She said the alliance was seeking clarity from Government on some points of ambiguity in the new document.

“That [the Programme for Government] is what we have to work off so from our perspective it is a critical document,” she said.

The group’s analysis also claims that progress made on “silent commitments” – those in the Programme for Government 2007–2012, but not in the renewed programme – has been “difficult to ascertain”.

Ms Corbett also said there was “no rationale given” for some of the omissions.

“The ones that are left out are equally important and there is no explanation as to why they were left out,” she said.

* www.childrensrights.ie.