Madam, - The article by Anne McElhinney and Phelim McAleer on the impact of Irish aid on the crisis in Romania's state orphanages ("Helping or Hurting?", Weekend, August 30th) was interesting, if flawed. It is right that we question the spending and effectiveness of all aid funding, but any such questioning should be intelligent and should stem from a full understanding of the issues involved. Most problems in Romania's childcare system are far more complex than your article would have us believe.
The problems of the early 1990s have not gone away. Until recently, the government of Romania was using statistics and propaganda to deal with the issue, and it found willing co-propagandists among a few tame foreign journalists in Bucharest's café society.
The government had a simple way of dealing with the huge numbers in State care: re-categorise large segments of them, and they disappear from the statistics. It was a lot easier than applying resources to deal with the problem, and gullible people in key areas of politics and the media bought the charade.
This is how it worked. The children under 18 are in the care of the Department of Child Protection, and the Department of Handicap looks after the older teenagers. The young children would comprise the smaller percentage of inmates in an institution; move them to a different facility and declare the orphanage "closed", and the statistics show that the authorities dealt with the entire number.
The "closed" orphanage is re-categorised as an adult institution and stays in business; when the young children who were removed reach 18 they are dumped back into the same orphanage. In a short number of years the "closed" orphanage is back exactly where it started.
In the light of this explanation of the Romanian definition of "closure", how valid is the article's criticism of Sister Imelda Walsh's decision to spend €216,000 on new buildings in Gradinari, which is to be "closed" in 18 months?
A year ago I challenged Phelim McAleer to visit the "closed" orphanage in Nicoresti, unannounced, and report on what he saw there to the world. I still await his report.
In the recent past Focus on Romania, along with our other partner NGOs in Romania, has succeeded in having policies and budgets put in pace in the Handicap Ministry. We now have agreement on the closure and decommissioning of an institution at Negru Voda, and its replacement by a state-of-the-art care centre and social housing in the Constanta region. This is a partnership project between the Irish NGOs, the Romanian Government, and Constanta county council, and as a pilot project it is intended to provide a solution to the national crisis.
At a meeting with various Ministers in Bucharest in July 2002 we received an admission from the Secretary of state for Handicap that the government had no policy and no budget for dealing with this issue. In other words, the reform process had not yet begun as of that date. This is in contrast to an article written by Phelim McAleer a few months previously in the Financial Times, when he eulogised the advances in the state sector. According to him, Romanian orphans had never had it so good!
If your reporters or anyone else want to really help, instead of slinging mud at voluntary organisations which do not have the resources to adequately defend themselves they should contact their politicians. They should ask them to keep pressure on the Romanian government to deliver on our pilot project and its subsequent roll-out.
All the problems in Romania relating to the state care of children and young adults could be resolved in months if such reform was to be made a condition of Romania's further progression towards EU accession.
Maybe your correspondents would consider putting their word processors to work in that direction? - Yours, etc.,
JOHN MULLIGAN,
Chairman,
Focus on Romania,
Clonsilla Road,
Dublin 15.