The ISPCC says 1,000 parents and children will march in Dublin this afternoon to protest against the low political priority given to childcare services.
It described as "a system meltdown and a national scandal" the recent revelation that 2,400 cases in the Eastern Health Board area are on the waiting list for social workers. "If there is such a large number of actual or potential child abuse cases unallocated or unmanaged in the Eastern Health Board region, the number nationally is surely two or three times as great," it said.
IASW confirmation that healthy children were being put in hospitals "is further evidence of continuing system failure".
Yesterday, five years after publication of the Kilkenny incest case inquiry recommendations, "few of the substantive recommendations have been implemented in a fashion that has produced, or can be shown to have produced, better outcomes for children," the ISPCC said.