Speech on Children’s Rights to the Annual Conference of the Progressive Democrats, April 2006.

It is said that the measure of the civility of a society is how it treats its prisoners. This principle seems to be based upon the idea that a society can be judged by how it treats those who are most likely to be disenfranchised, those whose right to be fully part of civil society is sometimes unclear. It seems to me that another and perhaps better measure to apply would be the way in which a society treats its children. It is difficult to talk about children and children’s rights without becoming mired in cliché; difficult to avoid platitudes about how children are the future, the most precious resource of every society and the foundations of the future of every nation. However like all clichés there is of course truth in those words which are the stuff of syrupy popular ballads and the source code of many well rehearsed speeches. And yet the rights of children are rarely considered in a way that reflects the nature of childhood. Children are uniquely vulnerable; they are that rare section of society who do not posses a cognitive sense of their individual rights and entitlements. Instead they are entirely dependent upon the adults in their lives to recognise, respect and vindicate their rights. Children need champions; they are unable to voice their own needs and unable to articulate and fight for their rights. The State, as the guardian of the rights of its citizens, must be that champion.

 

We now know that as a State we have failed to champion our children. Over the past two decades we have been forced to face the depth and truth of that failure. It is clear that too often our attitude to children in need has to be seen them as a problem, a nuisance that needed to be vanished. Too often the attitude of the state and all of us as citizens has been that children, especially those living in poverty and those who have been abused and neglected should be neither seen nor heard. Children whose pain or whose challenging behaviour made us uncomfortable were often vanished; banished to institutions where their distress and trauma was compounded rather than relieved. Ireland, that mythical land of comely maidens dancing at the crossroads, needed its children to silent, compliant and content. Ireland needed to be idyllic; its leaders both political and moral were more concerned with their rose tinted vision of a perfect and pious land than the reality. Rather than work to address the many problems within our communities and families experienced by children they chose to deny the existence of those problems.

 

Children are often objectified; not seen as individuals with the same rights as adults but instead viewed as extensions of adults, be those adults their parents or carers. Indeed under the Irish Constitution, it is those adults, coined in terms of the family, that are described as having unique and inalienable rights. This approach is consistent with a philosophy that sees children’s rights as being derived from their status as members of a family, rather than as inherent to them as individuals. In reality as the power within the family structure is possessed by the adult rather than the child members of that family, children’s rights are more often than not subservient to the rights of parents.

 

In the week of the 90^th Anniversary of the Easter Rising it is appropriate to reflect on the vision of children’s rights that were central to that dream of a free Ireland of equals. There is clear evidence of profoundly radical views of children’s rights being a central aspect of the revolutionary vision of 1916. It is to be found prominently in the programme for government of the first Dáil Eireann;

 

It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children, to secure that no child shall suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing, or shelter…

- Democratic Programme for Government of the First Dáil Eireann, 21^st January 1919

 

There in a determined and radical affirmation of the primacy of the rights of children we can see a vision of a nation that should have become a shining light in the area of children’s rights. In appreciating just how radical a view this was consider that the first Dáil affirmed its duty to protect the children of the nation a full 70 years before the United Nations adopted its Convention on the Rights of the Child,  and at a time when children’s rights were not really considered an issue in most jurisdictions. Yet our constitution which was adopted almost two decades later is devoid of any such radical and profound recognition of our collective responsibility for the nation’s children.

Ireland is poorer for that loss of vision. Had the rights of children and the responsibility of us all as a State to protect those rights been explicit in our constitution, much suffering, both on a societal and an individual level would have been avoided.

 

It is time for us as a society to accept that we need to reassess our cultural attitudes towards children and their rights. We speak of adopting a ‘child centered’ approach to childcare but the focus of our attention in that regard is on the cost of crèches and childcare ahead of consideration of the quality of that care or the needs of children. Again, our focus is primarily about the pressure on parents and the financial burden of childcare and not on the needs of children. How is that ‘child centered’? How does that approach consider the needs of children?

 

Our approach to children’s rights and the development of policy and legislation on children’s issues has been more often than not dictated by the sensibilities and sensitivities of parents rather than the rights and needs of children. We need to recognise and act on the fundamental principle that policy and legislation related to children and child welfare must be developed with a focus on the needs of children. Most importantly we must amend our constitution to ensure that the rights of children are explicitly endorsed and that the duty of the State to protect those rights is framed within that document. Such an amendment would require that all future legislation and policy was truly ‘child centered’.

 

It is clear that there is a reluctance to enshrine the rights of citizens and the responsibility of the state to its citizens in law. It is argued that to develop a rights based approach to legislation and policy will expose the state to mischievous and spurious litigation. Consider that for a moment; that argument supposes that the law as it stands is a bar to the proper recognition of the rights and entitlements of our most vulnerable citizens. If the law were ever to be properly described as an ass this would be the time to do it! Any anxiety that to explicitly commit and require the State to recognise and provide for the rights of its citizens would expose the state to cowboy lawyers bringing spurious actions against the state should result not in the denial of those rights but in the reform of the law. In the short term it might be considered pragmatic to limit the states exposure by not enshrining the rights of citizens in law. One might take the view that instead policy will be developed to properly consider and deliver services based upon the principle inherent in a rights based approach. Such a solution might appear pragmatic but is it right? Is it ever acceptable for the state to limit the rights of citizens for pragmatic reasons?

 

Pragmatism has no place in politics unless it is underpinned by principle. It might be expedient to dodge the clear need for law reform but is it right? Expediency might suggest the avoidance of conflict with those opposed to reform and instead seek a muddled consensus that offends no-one but changes nothing. Successful government is not simply about being a successful broker of consensus; it must surely be about vision, about leadership and a desire to instrument change where it is needed, and change is needed.

 

For the first seven decades following the foundation of this state the grave economic problems faced by the nation limited the ability of the state to be effective in areas of social policy and the care of children. Education, health care and social work were seen as acts of charity rather than the responsibility of the State. Today we continue to live with the cultural legacy of that approach. Successive Governments have failed to properly discharge their clear responsibility for the provision of education, health and social care services. This is changing, but their remains a reluctance on the part of the state to become fully involved and responsible for such services.  For instance, we fund education but delegate responsibility for the management of our education system to third parties and voluntary bodies. This approach allows government to abdicate responsibility for failures in child protection within education. Government must act responsibly; but more than that it must be responsible. If the state has failed a citizen, if the rights of any citizen have been trodden upon or abused, then our first concern should be to establish the cause of the abuse and respond appropriately and responsibly. It should not be to instead seek legal cause to dodge responsibility, to deny liability.

 

Too often Government interprets the interests of the state as being the protection of its assets rather than of its citizens. If the default position of Government is that it must protect the state, i.e. the assets of the state, from its citizens then where now lies the dream of a republican democracy? Could it be true that the law has at times become a means for government to avoid its responsibility to citizens rather than a means for it to protect and cherish those citizens?

 

I have always been struck by the extraordinary irony in the language that we use to describe children’s behaviour in Ireland. It is perhaps indicative of the less enlightened aspects of our historic attitude towards children that we believe a bold child is a bad child. Think about that. Every day in Ireland we tell our children not to be bold.  It suggests a cultural attitude towards children which demands a child be meek and acquiescent. It suggests that we would rather not be troubled or challenged by the nature of childhood and the needs of our children. I know of course that what we mean is ‘be good, but since when was being bold, that is, being brave, daring, intrepid, courageous, valiant, audacious and gallant, bad? Let me be clear, I am not being facetious. If we are to properly address the need to evolve our approach to children and child welfare in this new Ireland then we must examine and question our basic beliefs about children and childhood. What worked in the days of large families and an agricultural economy, in the days of mothers remaining in the home will not, and cannot work today.

 

It is time for us to be bold. It is time for us to show courage and determination and to recognise that we have a duty to each other and to all of our children that we cannot and should not seek to abdicate to others.

 

We must continue to refine and develop our employment and work practices, our social policy and legislation in ways which promote greater inclusion and opportunity for all. No person should be denied the opportunity to participate in and contribute to our success as a nation. However our children should not now become victims of that success. In developing options for childcare and services for children and young people we must ensure that the principles underpinning such services are not those which view children as a barrier to their parent’s involvement in the economy but rather an opportunity to enrich and support family life in all of its modern diversity but especially the lives and welfare of all of our children. This is our challenge; to create an approach which cherishes and values all of our children, not only as future contributors to the success of our economy, not only because to do so makes real the vision which brought about the birth of our nation but because to do so is not just the ultimate measure of our civility but of our humanity.