NO CHILD 2020  

It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to... secure that NO CHILD shall suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing, or shelter, but that all shall be provided with the means and facilities requisite for their proper education and training as Citizens...

Declaration of 1st Dáil, January 1919

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No Child 2020: The project These policy ideas are starting points in a strategy to eliminate child poverty
 
Fintan O'Toole The problems children face in Ireland and the policies that could solve them
 
Kitty Holland Ireland and Finland take different approaches to single working mothers
 

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Jacqui Dwyer (left) and Louise Smyth at the community communion pop-up shop at Ballymun Child and Family Resource Centre in Ballymun, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times A community project for Communion season’s best-dressed
The latest analysis from the St Vincent de Paul shows that between 2012 and 2017, while the economy recovered and unemployment levels fell, the poverty rate among working lone parents more than doubled. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA Wire The Irish Times view on poverty rates: lone parents’ struggles
Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People Koulla Yiasouma highlighted that almost one in four of the region’s children and young people are affected by ‘significant’ mental health problems. Photograph: PA North’s mental health service for young people ‘on its knees’
At the Ark: Kate Heffernan with members of the centre’s children’s council. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill ‘What children think seems to mean a lot more here, and that’s really cool’
Some 2,250 children are waiting for specialist mental health treatment, according to the Children’s Rights Alliance. Photograph: iStock Thousands of children with mental health concerns on waiting lists for assessments
Children are the single biggest group of the population living in poverty. They worry about their parents and learn not to ask. And as they get older they become more aware and feel inferior Did you hear about the toddler stealing food from a creche?
Barnardos chief executive Suzanne Connolly at the organisation’s Finglas centre. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill ‘For better or worse, we all carry our childhood with us’
At a disadvantage: while middle-class girls thrive, working-class boys struggle. Photograph: Moment/Getty Class and education in Ireland: ‘Disadvantaged students cannot thrive’
Some 5.4 million children under the age of five died in 2017, almost all of them in developing countries. They died with almost no public awareness at all Jeffrey Sachs: Ending child poverty is within reach

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No Child 2020 is an initiative by The Irish Times, providing a sustained focus on child welfare and children’s issues