Greater rights for children urged

The charity One In Four, which supports victims of sexual violence, has called on the Government to introduce a constitutional amendment to give greater rights to children.

The director of One In Four, Colm O'Gorman, also gave details to an Oireachtas committee yesterday of a study carried out by his organisation which indicated that persons with complaints or concerns about abuse could have difficulty contacting duty social workers around the country.

Mr O'Gorman said the current constitutional guarantee of the right of a citizen to their good name could be in conflict with best practice in child protection.

He said fear of defamation could prevent the use of "soft information" by agencies investigating allegations of abuse.

He defined soft information as material that was not substantive enough to allow specific allegation to be made but which indicated a clear sense that something was wrong.

He said that in the report of the Kilkenny Incest Investigation, Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness had said that "the very emphasis on the rights of the family in the Constitution may consciously or unconsciously be interpreted as giving higher value to the rights of parents than the rights of children".

Mr O'Gorman said in one case which his organisation was aware of, social workers had asked a person expressing concerns about a third party whether they had contacted their solicitor as they feared that the material could be defamatory.

In a presentation to the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, Mr O'Gorman said a constitutional amendment must reflect "the rights of children to live free from abuse and exploitation and the duty of the State to act to safeguard children from harm".

"Such an amendment to the Constitution would require that child protection practice and legislation would vindicate those rights," he added.

He said there was a need to review existing child protection legislation, policy and practice. He said that as part of study last week One In Four sought to contact duty social workers in 32 locations around the country.

It found that: in 10 per cent of cases there was no answer; in 12 per cent the call was referred to voicemail; in 12 per cent the caller was asked to ring back; in 7 per cent of cases the number for the duty social worker listed in the official guide was wrong; in 7 per cent details of the case were taken; in another 7 per cent the person was referred to another service; while in 31 per cent there was no-one immediately available to deal with the issue.

He called for the Health Service Executive to be given express powers to intervene in cases of abuse carried out by someone outside of the family and argued that the proposed inter-agency review groups, recommended by the Ferns report to examine cases of alleged abuse should be audited annually by a new national office for child protection.