A new national children's strategy is to be drawn up by the Government, the Taoiseach announced yesterday. It will aim to improve the way Government departments work together in relation to children, based on children's rights.
Mr Ahern said a comprehensive statement of those rights will be drawn up by the Minister of State for Children, Mr Frank Fahey.
The Taoiseach was speaking at the announcement at Cherry Orchard in Dublin of 12 family support projects to divert 400 children a year from care or detention at a cost of £2.4 million per annum.
The inadequacies of the country's childcare system were attacked by Mr Fahey, who said children were being placed in detention centres and hospitals or sent outside the State because there is nowhere else for them.
"We have a childcare system which is crisis driven and grossly under-funded," Mr Fahey declared.
"The situation has become so bad that we place children in care in hospitals because there is nowhere else for them. At present we have placed a number of children needing care in centres outside the State at a cost of £1 million per annum. "We place children in detention centres despite the fact that they have committed no offence, and are at times often put there because it is the only mechanism to lock them up."
Mr Fahey said four of the eight children now in St Michael's detention centre in Finglas "should not be there".
The 12 family support projects will be spread throughout the country with at least one in each health board region. The centres "are essentially a social partnership between the statutory and voluntary agencies, driven by the communities involved", he said.
They will work closely with the Home School Community Liaison Scheme and with the Garda Juvenile Liaison Scheme, Mr Fahey told The Irish Times. They would work closely with the families of children at risk of going into care or detention and would aim to work on a one-to-one basis with children, most of whom will be aged between seven and 11. The projects will also "work in an intensive manner with a small group of children between 12 and 15 where the only alternative is the State's detention centres".
The Cabinet Sub-Committee on Social Exclusion has allocated £2.4 million a year to the scheme for three years.
The announcement was welcomed by Barnardo's, the independent child care agency, which will manage at least three of the projects. "We have been advocating just such an initiative for many years," said Barnardo's chief executive, Mr Owen Keenan.
"We have demonstrated the value of family support services as a relevant and effective response to the needs of vulnerable children."
Mr Fahey also announced moves to encourage relatives to foster children at risk, parenting programmes and other supports for vulnerable families.