ISPCC seeks end to child beggars

About 30 families consistently leave their children to beg on the streets of Dublin, a report, published today by the ISPCC, will say.

The report, published by the society's Leanbh service, found a 37 per cent decrease in the number of sightings of children begging in the 2003/04 period as compared with the previous year.

However, the number of sightings - 973 - remains significant. Of these 171 were of children aged four years and younger, the youngest begging with an older family member.

The Leanbh service is a 24-hour service aiming to protect children from begging. It works with families involved.

Some 35 of the children sighted by Leanbh this year were aged between five and seven, 212 between eight and 12 years, with the highest number (369) in the 13- to 15-year-old age group. There were 161 aged 16 to 18.

Mr Paul Gilligan, chief executive of the ISPCC said children who were abandoned to beg or forced to beg with parents represented a clear-cut child protection issue.

"Such children are often deprived of their constitutional right to education. They are exploited, demeaned and have their human dignity assaulted." He said children were out in all kinds of weather, jeopardising their physical and emotional health. The children are almost evenly split between boys (480) and girls (470).

"Many children who beg come from the Traveller community with an increasing number coming from the Roma community," says the report. It adds however: "The vast majority of Traveller families utterly reject child begging and would not condone child begging."

Other children on the streets during the year included children who had run away from difficult home situations, from residential or foster care or who had addiction problems.

Mr Gilligan said such children were at risk of being physically and sexual assaulted as well as becoming criminalised.

The ISPCC will also today publish the results of a national survey of people's attitudes to child begging. It found that while 82.2 per cent of people had witnessed child begging and 90.7 per cent believed children begging were in danger, almost half (42.3 per cent) did nothing.

In response to these findings the ISPCC will publish a leaflet of guidelines on understanding and dealing with child begging. It will say that any child begging should be reported to the statutory agencies "such as the health boards and gardaí".

These bodies have a duty to protect begging children under the Child Care Act 1991, school attendance acts and the Children's Act 2001, says the ISPCC.