New policies must aim to treat all children equally
Various Irish studies and reports point to the impact of structural discrimination on the lives and life chances of disadvantaged children.
Work is currently ongoing at a government level on a new national policy framework for children and young people, the successor to Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, adopted in 2014.
As with its predecessor, the central focus of the new framework will no doubt be on addressing disparities in health, education, and personal and economic wellbeing outcomes among children.
While this will necessitate further improvements in services to children and parents, measures to address childhood disadvantage must go beyond interventions at the level of families.
The underlying social, economic, and political factors which drive disparities in outcomes must be identified and tackled.
This is in no small part due to the intermingled effects of various global crises — the increasingly urgent climate crisis, the armed conflicts driving unprecedented levels of displacement, and most obviously the still ongoing Covid-19 pandemic — all of which are impacting on an intensifying cost of living crisis.
While all children in Ireland have been affected by the social and economic disruption of the pandemic and other crises, we know that the impact has been uneven and has served to reinforce preexisting disadvantages associated with inequalities such as social class, asylum-seeking status, and disability.
Understanding and addressing the needs of those children for whom outcomes are less favourable than their peers necessitates a closer examination of the discrimination faced by those disadvantaged on one or more of the various equality grounds.
Although prohibited under Irish law, discrimination in relation to employment and access to housing remain issues for certain groups which necessarily impacts the resources and opportunities available to families.
Various Irish studies and reports also point to the impact of structural discrimination on the lives and life chances of disadvantaged children.
Structural discrimination results from privileging the interests of those with the most economic resources and highest social status over those with the least in law, policy, and practice.
In Ireland, this is evident in the direct provision system for persons seeking asylum, in the inadequate recognition of linguistic and cultural or sexual and gender diversity within educational and other services, in lower rates and more intense surveillance of claimants of unemployment and one-parent family payments, and in the habitual residence condition for access to social benefits.
The well-documented biases and deficits of Irish housing policy impact particularly severely on those disadvantaged on the basis of socioeconomic inequality and its intersection with migrant status, lone parent status and/or racialised inequality among other grounds.
I have no doubt that the government officials tasked with developing the new national policy framework for children are genuinely and deeply committed to addressing the disparities in outcomes for children.
Their work is hampered by evidence gaps that must be addressed, for instance through putting in place provision for comprehensive equality monitoring as recommended by various human rights bodies in recent years.
What must also be addressed is wider political reluctance to institute policy reforms which get to the roots of inequality, for instance prioritizing the right to a home over profit from property investment.
It is important to acknowledge that there have been some welcome policy developments in recent years with the potential to significantly improve the lives of some of the most disadvantaged children in Ireland.
These include the scheme to regularise the status of undocumented persons, a significant proportion of whom are children, as well as the commitments set out in the White Paper to End Direct Provision.
When implemented — and this must remain high on the political agenda — the latter will address one of the most egregious instances of discriminatory state policy, the long-term effects of which on the lives of those children directly affected remain unknown.
Progress in these areas must be matched by a commitment to identifying and reforming any policies which have intended or unintended discriminatory effects, whether on the basis of membership of the Travelling community or other racialised minority, migrant status, lone parent status, or any combination of these or other equality grounds.
We have seen important developments over the last two decades in relation to involving children, including those disadvantaged on equality grounds, in decision-making.
It is at least as important that the diversity of the population, across various dimensions, is fully reflected in those employed in decision-making roles across the higher levels of government departments and agencies and in the private and voluntary sectors.
A century after the foundation of an independent Irish state, this would be a fitting way to help ensure that all children in Ireland are cherished equally.
- Dr Karen Smith is a lecturer in Equality Studies in the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
