"No support for some thousands of families". "Increase in physical abuse of children". "Dead at fifteen". These are some of the stark headlines in recent newspapers, and no doubt they will have led many readers to wonder about the direction the country is taking.

The most striking report must have been about the observations of Dr Peter Keenan, Accident & Emergency Consultant in Temple Street Children's Hospital. Dr Keenan described the marked increase in child physical abuse and neglect over the past couple of years. In a follow-up interview on RTE, he explored this trend further and suggested it was time to question the circumstances into which many children are born.

Dr Keenan has thrown down a challenge to Irish society, and especially its political leaders, to tackle this urgent and worsening problem. Whatever mitigating circumstances might have existed in the past in respect of the lack of government resources, there are no such excuses now.

It would seem that the child-protection services are having great difficulty in coping. At any one time, there are about 500 children on waiting lists for a social worker. There is a high turnover of staff, mainly due to burnout.

In recent years a lot of attention has been focused on sexual abuse. This has resulted in other forms of abuse being relegated to non-priority status. And non-priority often means not receiving any attention.

But why has there been such an increase in these kinds of child abuse, and what can be done?

The reality of life for an increasing number of Irish children is that their parents are themselves very vulnerable and are often not in a position to provide the care and security so badly needed by their children. There are many factors which contribute to this vulnerability, ranging from drug addiction and alcoholism to unemployment, abuse in their own childhood, poor educational achievement and homelessness.

A parent's personal difficulties may be compounded by the fact that they are parenting alone and may be little more than children themselves.

Many disadvantaged parents may have poor parenting abilities, mainly due to their own negative experiences as children and the absence of support from the extended family.

Many parents from disadvantaged backgrounds do an excellent job in rearing their children. However, too often a combination of factors will converge to tip the balance against them. Parents who lack the capacity to care for their children will frequently be left to struggle alone by the State agencies. Too often there is no serious intervention until a family is in real crisis.

This lack of intervention is mirrored at a political level. There is no Cabinet Minister with overall responsibility for the welfare of children. Eight government departments are involved in children's issues to a greater or lesser extent. But critically, the buck doesn't stop with one particular minister.

The idea of a junior minister for children trying hopelessly to straddle the various Departments to achieve a modicum of co-ordination is an utterly inadequate approach. What is needed is a senior minister with responsibility for all issues relating to children.

This Minister needs to have the clout, not just to secure resources, but to articulate a vision of what childhood should be about and how families can be helped in providing the best possible care for their children. The Minister needs to be a champion and defender of children's rights.

AT present there is no Government policy in respect of children and families - there isn't even any public debate. The child welfare and protection services are grossly underfunded. Such family support services as exist operate on a shoestring. There has been no serious attempt to try to reduce the number of births to young vulnerable parents.

The tax and welfare systems continue to discriminate against twoparent families. There is no State-funded pre-school service and primary schools in poor areas remain starved of resources.

Central to all the above points is the fact that the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen. In fact, that gap is now such a gulf that it is probably not inaccurate to speak about the emergence of an Irish underclass, a significant section of our society whose lives are becoming increasingly foreign to middle Ireland.

People who are excluded in this way don't articulate their plight in the letters pages of your daily newspaper; they don't have much spending power; and they tend not to turn out in great numbers at election time. Increasingly, it seems that the brave new Ireland doesn't give a damn about them any more.

It's not hard to see how any of the brutalised children Dr Keenan described could become the thuggish teenagers of tomorrow and the dysfunctional parents of a few years' time. And so the vicious cycle continues.

Yes, parents must be held morally and legally responsible for the actions of their children. But that principle presupposes that all parents are given a fair chance in life. Many are themselves victims, and the reality is that increasing numbers of Irish people are being left to flounder. Dr Peter Keenan has given us all a loud and clear wake-up call. If we fail to heed it, it could be the most reprehensible, and the most costly, failure of public policy ever.

Roisin Shortall is a Labour Party TD for Dublin North West