The long-awaited appointment of an Ombudsman for Children will be widely welcomed. Ms Emily Logan faces an onerous task, but will be supported by a tide of goodwill as she takes up office in the New Year.
She has much to do. It is now more than eight years since it was first promised, and six years since the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child called for this appointment, and pointed to the many derelictions in Irish public policy towards children.
Its criticisms included the lack of any comprehensive policy on child care, the absence of adequate co-ordination between agencies, the lack of any measures to ensure that children maintained contact with both parents after divorce and the low age of criminal responsibility. The UN Committee recommended an ombudsman, accessible to children, for dealing with their complaints of violations of their rights, and to provide remedies for such violations.
At national level, too, there have been repeated calls for such an office from the Children's Rights Alliance and Fr Peter McVerry, among others. For a long time it appeared that their calls received little attention, as the two previous governments promised a Children's Ombudsman, but failed to deliver.
However, the last Fianna Fáil/PD coalition did introduce the necessary legislation, which was passed by the previous Dáil before it was dissolved. Its implementation included consultation with selected children, broadly representative of different social groups, about what was required and their involvement in the selection process. This Government had pressed ahead with the appointment.
Ms Logan will be empowered to deal with complaints, and also has a mandate to promote the needs and interests of children. She is likely, initially at least, to be deluged with the former. Already in recent years we have seen a litany of tales of frustrated parents and concerned agencies seeking help in vain for disturbed and out-of-control children, of children as young as nine sleeping rough, of bullying and abuse. Ms Logan will be able to examine complaints about the sins of commission and omission of any public bodies involved.
She will be able to publish reports, and require the bodies concerned to state how they will ensure violations of children's rights, if they have occurred, will not happen again. However, she will not be able to require any change in the allocation of resources in favour of children and, in many instances, that may prove to be the crux of the problem. We wish her well.