Child safety programme must be taught, says abuse survivor

A PROMINENT survivor of clerical sex abuse has urged the Government to make it mandatory for schools to teach a programme that helps children protect themselves in danger situations.

The Irish Examiner revealed yesterday that dozens of schools are offering no child protection programme at all and as many as 150 were not teaching the Stay Safe programme now in use at most of the country’s 3,300 primary schools. It is used as part of the social, personal and health (SPHE) curriculum and teaches children to recognise unsafe situations and respond by saying “no” if asked to do something wrong or dangerous.

Andrew Madden, who has campaigned for child protection and welfare since making public his abuse at the hands of Dublin priest Fr Ivan Payne in 1995, said he was very concerned to hear that Stay Safe is still not mandatory.