One minister to have responsibility for policy on child care

Responsibility for co-ordinating policy on child care is once again to be held by one Minister of State, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs has said.

In a reversal of the practice of the last government, the Minister of State for Health and Children, Mr Frank Fahey, will be given responsibility also in the Departments of Education and Justice. He will be assisted by a multi-departmental team of officials.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ms Liz O'Donnell was at a hearing yesterday of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, where considerable criticism was voiced, and acknowledged as valid by the Minister, of the fragmentation of child policy in Ireland between Government departments.

Ms O'Donnell, who was reporting to the Committee on Ireland's child-care record, also announced a series of planned initiatives:

The establishment of an independent social services inspector ate, to concentrate initially on child-care facilities;

The funding of a campaign to raise awareness of children's rights - initially £100,000, but with more promised;

A commitment to making available a place in foster care for every child who needs one;

The establishment of a paedophile register to facilitate the monitoring of known paedophiles;

A commitment to reconsider the apparently deferred idea of an Ombudsman for Children;

A commitment to amend the Constitution to provide explicit protection for children if the all-party Committee on the Constitution agrees;

The establishment of an association of children in care to ensure greater involvement of such children in decisions about their lives.

The Minister also reiterated the Programme for Government commitment to the mandatory reporting of sexual abuse of children, although Mr Fahey has recently distanced himself from the idea.

"I'm not prepared to abandon a pledge I made when out of Government," Ms O'Donnell said.

Several members of the committee argued that there appeared to be a lack of co-ordination between different Government departments and a piecemeal approach to child care in Ireland.

Ms O'Donnell said she took the point and accepted there was a need to formulate a comprehensive national policy on children, but she argued that the Government had been delayed by work arising from the explosion in awareness and cases of sexual abuse.

Speaking of the need for constitutional reform, Ms O'Donnell admitted that "an undue emphasis in the past on the rights of the parents has dogged the development of effective vindication of children's rights as well as the secrecy which surrounded child abuse".

She was confident that the all-party committee would agree to approve amendments to the Constitution.

Children's rights activists here welcomed the commitments of the Minister, although there was some cynicism about the timing of their announcements.

Ms Madeleine Clark of the Children's Rights Alliance an umbrella group of 60 concerned organisations, particularly welcomed the pledge to make the social services inspectorate independent.

She said she was delighted that the proposals for an ombudsman and a constitutional referendum were still on the table but pressed the Government to speed up the timetable on both issues. The alliance would expect the Government to honour its obligation to mount a comprehensive campaign publicising children's rights under the Convention, she said.