IRELAND:Despite strong economic growth over the last decade and sustained anti-poverty efforts, children growing up in Ireland suffer greater deprivation than those in most other wealthy countries, according to a UN study.
The report shows that Ireland ranks 19th out of 21 industrialised countries for the proportion of children experiencing hardship, ahead of Hungary and Poland. However, when other indicators such as education, family relationships and risk-taking behaviour are included, Ireland rises to 12th place in the Unicef league table which measures overall wellbeing of children.
Northern European countries dominated the top of the league table, with child wellbeing at its highest in The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
The United Kingdom came bottom of the list, behind the United States. The study found the UK lagged behind on key measures of poverty and deprivation, health and safety, relationships, risk-taking and young people's own sense of wellbeing.
Overall, the study found there was no consistent relationship between a country's wealth and a child's quality of life across developed countries. The Czech Republic, for example, achieves a higher overall rank for child wellbeing than several much wealthier European countries.
Ireland fared best in areas of education (7th place), relationships with family and friends (7th), how children rate their own lives (5th) and risk-taking behaviour such as substance abuse or sexual activity (4th place).
However, it fared much worse in areas such as deprivation (19th) and health (19th).
Deprivation, or poverty, was measured on the basis of relative income poverty (the percentage of children living in homes with incomes 50 per cent below the national median), households without jobs, and reported deprivation by children themselves.
The Government has often criticised the use of the relative income poverty measure, arguing that many of those who fall below the relative poverty line enjoy a higher standard of living than at any other time in the past.
The UN, however, says this fails to acknowledge that in today's developed world, much of the cutting edge of poverty lies in the contrast between the lives of the poor and the lives of those around them.
Unicef's Marta Santos Pais said the overall report showed that children's basic needs were generally being met in rich countries, but there was scope for further progress in child wellbeing.
She said that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - ratified by Ireland - called on all countries to invest in its children "to the maximum extent of available resources". Ms Santos Pais said the league table was a useful way of testing this commitment.
"A country cannot be said to be doing the best it can for its children if other countries at a similar stage of economic development are doing much better - and that's what the league tables are designed to show, " she said.
Given the way childhood is being reshaped by outside forces, many people increasingly feel it is time to regain a degree of understanding, control and direction over what is happening to our children in their most vital, vulnerable years, she said. This process could begin with measurement and monitoring of the wellbeing of children.
