Irish children are generally happy and literate, a new study has concluded, but their schooling ends a year earlier than the international average, and spending on their pre-school education is "negligible". Frank McNally reports.
Other findings are that infant mortality rates here continue to be among the highest in the European Union, and that while childhood poverty has fallen over the past decade, there are 50,000 children in families on housing waiting lists.
Yet one of the main conclusions of the study - compiled by former Labour TD Ms Eithne Fitzgerald for the Children's Research Centre at Trinity College, Dublin - is that there is not enough information available about childhood in Ireland to determine whether policies are working.
Noting such major recent developments as the big rise in one-parent families and the growth in the numbers of children born to immigrants, Ms Fitzgerald complains of "significant gaps" in the information available.
"We don't know how many children never make it into second-level school. We don't know how many children have an educational disability, nor whether they are getting appropriate services.
"There is no official information on the quality of childcare. There is little information on the relationships between parents and children, a key influence on children's well-being."
However, speaking at the study's publication yesterday, the Minister of State with responsibility for children said that one of the main goals of the Government's National Children's Strategy was to develop a statistical base for policy formation.
The Minister, Mr Brian Lenihan, praised the report - Counting Our Children: an analysis of official data sources on children and childhood in Ireland - as "the most comprehensive study in this area to date".
But he promised that a survey of 18,000 children and their families - co-funded by the National Children's Office and the Department of Social and Family Affairs - "will have a significant impact on our future understanding of children's lives in Ireland".
Ms Fitzgerald also regretted that collection of statistics had traditionally been dominated by "the adult world of economics".
She said this was at the expense of "finding out how our children are doing".
She identified the main deficits in official knowledge as those concerning "children in education, children with disabilities, and children born outside marriage".
"Almost a quarter of all children born in 2001 had a non-resident father.
"There is little information about children's contacts or relationships with non-resident parents, who are mostly fathers, as they grow up.
"Indeed, we have no official data on Irish parenting style and parental activities with children. It would be interesting to learn of our children's values and attitudes, but here again we have no information," Ms Fitzgerald added.
The director of the Children's Research Centre at Trinity College, Dr Jean White, said the report showed the need for a different approach.
"The well-being of children is a current public concern, as well as being likely to affect well-being in adult life.
"This research shows that to get a rounded picture of childhood, we need to go beyond the standard adult-centred statistics and include issues of particular interest to children."