A RANGE of professions could face sanctions for failing to report
child welfare concerns under Government plans to put the Children First
child protection guidelines on a statutory footing.
The move was
announced by Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald after
receiving the fourth report of the Government’s special rapporteur on
child protection, Geoffrey Shannon.
The Children First guidelines,
a 160-page document outlining child protection measures in a variety of
contexts, were first published in 1999 but have never been made
obligatory. One of the recommendations of the Ryan report into child
sexual abuse by priests was that they be placed on a statutory footing.
Mr
Shannon’s report, which was presented to the Cabinet, deals
with the Children First guidelines and a range of other issues including
youth homelessness, children and the criminal law, trafficking of
children and prostitution.
Mr Shannon reiterated previous calls for a 24-hour out-of-hours social work service to address the needs of homeless children.
He
also urged co-operation between different State agencies to ensure that
the victims of child abuse were not questioned repeatedly and
separately by the HSE and the Garda, as happens at present, and urged
measures to address the welfare needs of young offenders.
“Mr
Shannon’s report is stark reading and shows a number of problems in the
child protection system in Ireland,” Ms Fitzgerald said. “Child
protection has been very sadly neglected by previous governments.”
She
said she was determined to redress past failings and would work in
close consultation with Mr Shannon on the issues he raised.
A
spokeswoman for the Minister said no policies had been prepared in the
department to address such issues as how the guidelines would be made
statutory, who would be bound by them and how compliance would be
achieved. These were being prepared as a matter of urgency and would be
published very shortly, with legislation drafted following consultation
with interested parties and NGOs, she said.
Among the proposals in
Mr Shannon’s report are to have co- operation between agencies
interviewing victims of child sexual abuse and regulation of the
disclosure of their confidential records during criminal trials.
The
report finds that prosecutions are compromised and children traumatised
by the fact
that two sets of interviews take place in child abuse
situations, one by the HSE and the other by the Garda.
He said
disclosure of confidential medical and counselling records to the
defence during criminal trials was leading to fewer cases being
processed as victims feared their records would be revealed to the
accused.
Mr Shannon recommended that disclosure orders should be
based on evidence of the relevance of the records, along the lines
outlined in a 2002 Northern Ireland case.
He said that children
accused of crimes were usually already vulnerable because of poverty and
family background. They should not be excluded from the remit of the
proposed children’s rights amendment to the Constitution.
He
recommended consideration of the Scottish system, which does not
distinguish between troubled young people and young people in trouble.
There, special Children’s Hearings existed for young people in trouble
with the law, which decided on both welfare matters and measures to deal
with offending behaviour, he said.
He also urged bail support
schemes, which existed in other jurisdictions, as a way of reducing
juvenile reoffending while on bail.
He echoes the proposals from
the Immigrant Council of Ireland and others for criminal sanctions
against the users of paid sexual services as a way of tackling child
prostitution and child trafficking.
Mr Shannon is critical of
recent legislation relating to begging as it applies to children,
pointing out that children forced to beg are being abused.
Referring
to children with mental health problems, he said there needed to be
legislation to clarify the right of those over 16 to consent to medical
intervention and detention in psychiatric institutions, which did not
exist at present.
The Mental Health Act 2001 should be amended to
clarify the rights of children in the mental health system, he
recommended.