Child injury death rates higher than EU average, says expert

Ireland could do much more to prevent children's deaths, particularly in the areas of road and fire safety, child safety expert Dr Alf Nicholson said yesterday.

His comments came as a European study found that more than 6,700 young deaths could be avoided every year if member states had the same safety levels as Sweden.

The review by the European Child Safety Alliance looked at the child and adolescent injury death rate in 18 countries and found that Sweden had the lowest rate while Greece had the highest. It also found that Northern Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden scored highest when it came to efforts to reduce fatal accidents among children.

Ireland was not a formal partner when the initiative was launched in 2004 so the State is not included in the survey, but the HSE will be involved in the production of the next Child Safety Report Card.

Dr Nicholson, a paediatrician at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, Co Louth, said Ireland's injury death rates among children were higher than the EU average in several areas.

The child death rate in road crashes per 100,000 population was double that of Sweden, he said. Sweden has introduced many measures to make roads safer for children. Dr Nicholson said seat belts were always worn, rules concerning car seats and bicycle helmets were strictly enforced and motorists drove slowly in urban areas.

This State also has a high incidence of fire fatalities among children, with the eighth highest rate of burn deaths out of 28 countries for under 19 year olds. "We could do a lot better," he said.

Joanne Vincenten, director of the European Child Safety Alliance said the report's findings were disappointing and she added that effective safety measures were not being properly enforced.

"It took years to reach agreement on the adoption of child-resistant cigarette lighters for example and we are still waiting for the car industry to adopt safer designs," she said.

Although the number of child deaths from accidents fell in the past three decades, they are still the main killer of children in every EU state.