Children in jeopardy - We can never again say we didn’t know

ONE of the few straws of comfort many of us reached for when the obscenities revealed in Judge Seán Ryan’s society-defining report was that the atrocities were firmly rooted in the past.

We shuddered, we were ashamed of what went on in our name, but we took refuge in the notion that Ireland today is a different place and that, in this instance at least, the past is a different country. We hid behind the passage of time and the belief that those atrocities could not happen today.

Oh, that it were so. Children may not be gang-raped or starved and whipped in institutions today, but there are still thousands of Irish children in positions that are utterly unacceptable just because their families are in normal, everyday difficulties.

And, as if it could still be a surprise, wretched, life-defining, life-denying poverty is at the centre of challenging figures from 2007 — the most recent available — published by the Health Services Executive.

Families struggling with money difficulties are most likely to be the ones whose children are less secure than any of us would wish. Families unable to secure suitable housing are also caught in this awful bind. As more and more jobs are lost these issues have the capacity to touch lives no one ever thought threatened. Alcohol and drug abuse also play a significant part in the terrible difficulties faced by too many children today.

Two years ago the HSE established that nearly 2,000 children — 1,978 — were abused in this country. That figure represented an increase of 10% on the previous year. If that rate of increase was sustained that figure is now closer to 2,500. As economic circumstances continue to deteriorate it might be even higher. It is disconcerting too to think that some immigrant children may be in difficulties that we do not even know about.

In 959 instances HSE investigations were inconclusive. Just 371 were confirmed as unfounded and assessment is ongoing in 1,215 cases. Of figures under consideration 991 cases centred on physical abuse; 1,099 focussed on sexual abuse; 782 to emotional abuse and 1,651 to neglect. Of more than 5,000 children in care on December 31, 2007, 1,429 — more than one-in-four — were there because of neglect.

In a country that remains comparably well off it is hard to understand how parents could neglect their children to a degree that demands State intervention. But then, it was that very sense of not believing, of not understanding, that allowed the abuses confirmed in the Ryan report go unchallenged for decades.

This raises a number of questions: do we adequately prepare young people to become parents? Do we too easily accept that young women — because it is always the women — can be isolated as single parents?

Are we happy to accept that poverty will always bring its own problems, even if that means families divided and children abused then so be it?

Yesterday two of the country’s senior Catholic churchmen met Pope Benedict to discuss the Ryan report. In that instance we were able to blame dysfunctional and criminal clerics even though the State condemned children to their care. Today those excuses are gone, and the plight of the 5,000 children in the State’s care is a problem of our time and we must ensure that they are treated as if they were our own children.

We can never again say we didn’t know.