Files show childcare crisis unchanged 30 years on

THE state’s failings in relation to out-of-home and at-risk children were clearly flagged 30 years ago, but then, as now, the official response was less than laudable.

Government files from 1980 released this week by the National Archives reveal little appetite for the reforms recommended by the Task Force on Child Care Services which reported that year. Notes for a cabinet meeting in October 1980 describe the report as follows: “It proposes an elaborate bureaucratic structure to look after what is essentially a family problem.”

Ministers agreed that the report, which was six years in preparation, should be made public, but stressed: “The Minister [Health Minster Michael Woods] wishes to emphasise that agreement to publication of the report would not be taken as commitment to the recommendations which it contains.”