Sir, – It is not difficult to spot what unites the unbuilt children’s museum and the incomplete new children’s hospital (“‘Astonishing’: €1.1m in legal costs paid by OPW over unbuilt children’s science centre criticised,”;“106,500 defects in 5,728 rooms at the new national children’s hospital”, News, April 29th).
Making up a quarter of our population, children are our future, yet one in five go to bed hungry because there is not enough food at home. More than 5,000 don’t have a home.
In a time of unprecedented wealth, children also wait for a functioning Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (Camhs), adequate community disability services, early-years childcare, special care places in regulated settings, sufficient school places, robust protection for their online safety, and timely surgery that meets the needs of their growing bodies.
The clock ticks on this generation of children who await a radical shift in perspective on how we use the substantial resources we hold.
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It was Nelson Mandela who said history will judge us by the difference we make to the everyday lives of children. – Yours, etc,
SUZANNE CROWE,
Consultant in paediatric intensive care medicine,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.
