The Government has been criticised by Ombudsman for Children Emily Logan for its attitude to child abuse victims.
She warned that anything less than a comprehensive review of child protection policy, practice and procedure would fall short of what was required to put things right. Ms Logan added that in a submission to the office of Minister of State for Children Brian Lenihan she had suggested that time must be given to ask children and families, who had been through the system, about their experience.
"As always, I received a polite response which informed me that this is a 'delicate matter', inferring that they have no intention of asking children and families what or how things could be better. I am suggesting that we ask those in the midst of this trauma, those for whom this experience is very real."
Ms Logan told the MacGill summer school in Glenties, Co Donegal, that 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.
"The current system is not child focused. Much of the responsibility to disclose is placed on the child, who has already suffered dreadful trauma," she said.
Evidence given to the Child Abuse Commission had revealed that as far back as 1954, nine children were being transferred from St Joseph's in Kilkenny to a reformatory in Limerick because of their "misbehaviour", she said. However, when Department of Education inspector Anne McCabe took time to talk to the children she discovered they had been sexually assaulted.
"So why is it that a suggestion in 2006 that we ask children about their experience is met with resistance, when as far back as 1954 someone who was willing to take responsibility took time to talk to them? Is it because the system of child protection is there, above all, to protect itself?" Ms Logan said that many of the areas of deprivation were rooted in the reality that children were not thought of as individuals with rights.
"They are treated as either possessions of families or of the State. And it appears to me that it is the State who is the worst parent. Children are not recognised as individual rights-holders in the Irish Constitution.
"Their rights remain subordinate to those of their parents and the family unit as a whole," Ms Logan said.
Sr Stanislaus Kennedy, life president of Focus Ireland, said affluence had brought many good things to the State, with a landscape filled with new industries, new houses, new cars, new roads, newcomers, new hope and new confidence.
"Unfortunately, we have seen affluence as an end in itself, not as a means to an end, and it has numbed and dulled our vision of the common good.
"It has numbed our concern for each other and dulled our ability to see luxuries as luxuries. So the second house, the faster car, the second holiday and the third bathroom, at any cost, are the new badges of progress, which are necessary to quench a thirst that was not there 20 years ago."
Prof John Monaghan, vice-president of St Vincent de Paul, said in 2004 Irish people spent over €125 million on pet food, while sales and waiting lists for high-powered cars had doubled in four years. Yet, 400,000 people were still living in consistent poverty, while 800,000 people were at risk of poverty.
ESRI economist Prof John FitzGerald said economic growth had brought about a significant reduction in the number of people in consistent poverty.
"The fall in the number of long-term unemployed, and the related rise in wage rates for semi-skilled and unskilled labour relative to average incomes, has played a role in this change. However, if anything, the distribution of income has become more uneven. This is not because those on low incomes have done particularly badly but rather because those on high incomes have done particularly well. Lone parents and people with disabilities are today the groups at highest risk of poverty."
Chairwoman of the RTÉ Authority Mary Finan said the concept of philanthropy was not yet advanced in Ireland. Many of the State's multi-millionaires were finding they had enough money for themselves and their children and were seeking advice on what they should do with the rest.
"The Government, therefore, now has a golden opportunity, in partnership with business and these individuals, to create a unique world-class non-profit sector by building on our exceptional history of generosity and volunteering. It is equally important that the recipients of this money are accountable for it."
