Child protection - Legalising guidelines

Niall McElwee taught child protection courses at the Athlone Institute of Technology for more than two years after his conviction for the indecent assault of two young women in the Netherlands.

This raises serious questions about the way the guidelines for the protection of children have been ignored.

Those guidelines are provided in a comprehensive document, Children First. The Ferns report into clerical paedophile abuse had already stressed the need to put those guidelines on a statutory basis, and the report into the McElwee case reaffirms the point.