Child abuse - Failing to protect our children

THE extraordinary delays in investigating complaints of child abuse, up to 60% outstanding, must give rise to concern that inefficiency in some Health Services Executive (HSE) areas is contributing to that abuse.

The health services received more than 6,000 reports of child abuse in 2004 and a year and a half later considerably less than half of them — 40% — have been dealt with.

Given that not every single report will be genuine, neither can it be assumed that the figures illustrate a complete picture, for the simple reason that not all child abuse — physical, sexual or mental — is reported.

For instance, there is something fundamentally wrong when more than a quarter of Irish children are sexually abused, and it is astounding that the vast number of these crimes — as high as 95% — go unreported.

A few months ago, this country was in turmoil when a child sexual abuser was temporarily released from jail on foot of a constitutional challenge to the 1935 Criminal Law (Amendment) Act.

At the time, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said it was an appalling prospect to think of a child rapist walking around free.

Yet, that is effectively a fact of life in this country when such an extraordinarily high level of child sexual abuse cases go unreported.

Referring to child abuse and its prevention, Paul Gilligan, chief executive of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC), suggests a very practical move. It is the setting up of a national child abuse prevention programme, for the simple reason that child abuse needs to be prevented in the first place.

Earlier this year, the Ombudsman for Children Emily Logan warned that anything less than a comprehensive review of child protection policy, practice and procedure would fall far short of what was required to put things right.

It was imperative to create a culture where it was safe for a child to disclose abuse and where the adults they told were empowered to respond, she pointed out.

These figures from the HSE highlight precisely that point, because it is self-defeating to have a structure in place if it is inadequate.

Poverty is another form of abuse to which children are subjected. Despite the unprecedented success of the Irish economy, it masks a very unpalatable feature whereby families are floundering to exist and in many cases children are the victims of their circumstances.

Figures provided by the Department of Health and the HSE, reveal that there are more than 5,000 children in care nationally, indicative of the social deprivations which affect their families.

This is a substantial increase over the last 15 years, and while the relatively new phenomenon of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum may have compounded the problem, there is undoubtedly a core dilemma for some families.

There are regional disparities, but it is more than obvious that the support services provided by Government agencies are inadequate in the case of those families.

Those differences are substantial, spreading from 94% of 301 unresolved cases in the north western region of the country, to 416 of its 540 cases resolved in the western area.

Its own ban on recruitment is adding to the problem because while there are inconsistencies across the regions, there could be an improvement in the level of investigation if staffing were increased.