State ‘failing to protect children’

FINE GAEL’S Charlie Flanagan said the figures demonstrated the state was “failing to protect children”.

The party’s spokesman on children said: “The secretive nature of crimes involving children, the limited nature of the child protection regime and the sheer vulnerability of child victims means that crimes against children are most likely actually grossly underreported.

“In addition, when a crime against a child is revealed, eg sexual abuse, it has often been going on for some time, so the horrific figure of an average 3,500 recorded child victims of crime each year is likely to represent only the tip of the iceberg.”