THOUSANDS OF children will fail to reach their potential because the Government is not meeting its commitments in areas such as early childhood care, literacy and mental health, according to a report to be published today.
The Children’s Rights Alliance, a coalition of 80 non-governmental organisations, will today publish a report card giving the Government a “D” for its poor performance on a range of issues affecting children over the past year.
It says the divisions in society between rich and poor are deepening, with less-well-off children bearing the brunt of poor public services and long waiting lists.
Of the 25 policy commitments undertaken by the Government in recent years, around half are seriously behind schedule, while it has proved difficult or impossible to measure progress on another seven pledges.
The report is based on research that was verified by a external assessment panel which included experts such as Mrs Justice Catherine McGuinness, president of the Law Reform Commission and Sheila Greene, professor of childhood research at Trinity College Dublin.
Alliance chief executive Jillian van Turnhout said many of the results were shocking. “In Ireland, we believe that we value children, but the startling evidence shows otherwise,” she said.
Among the areas where the Government is judged to have performed worst include early childhood care and education, which received an “E” grade.
The report says the poor performance is due to the Government’s decision to halt its commitments to roll out early education support to deprived areas; its failure to measure progress on tackling child illiteracy; and its delivery of just 11 of the promised 40 new staff to the National Education and Welfare Board.
In order to improve its performance, the report says early childhood care and education services should be rolled out in disadvantaged areas and a new literacy target should be set for all children.
Another area where the Government performed very poorly was mental health, where it received another “E” grade.
The report says most mental health teams around the country have long waiting lists for treating children. Nationally, more than 3,600 children are waiting for psychiatric assessments; of this figure, more than 1,000 will have to wait more than a year.
For children with acute psychiatric problems, there is a major shortage of beds with just 16 of the 100 recommended in-patient beds available. This means some children end up in adult psychiatric hospitals.
The Government was also judged to have performed poorly in areas such as safeguarding childhood by not tackling alcohol abuse among teenagers and failing to deliver a promised national sexual health strategy.
The report points out that despite improvements in material wellbeing, more than 200,000 children are still at risk of poverty, ie with a family income of less than €337 per week.
The Government's performance in the report card, as judged by the alliance, was verified by an external panel which, in addition to Mrs Justice McGuinness and Prof Greene, included: Irish Timescolumnist Fintan O'Toole; Ictu assistant secretary general Sally Anne Kinahan; and Finola McDonnell, senior policy executive at employers' group Ibec.
