You're abused from the age of seven. By 12, you've been raped so often you've lost count. You hate yourself, your body, this godforsaken life you're stuck in. So you cut yourself, try to kill yourself, anything to make it end. We can't care for you. Sorry. Things are so bad we hardly know where to start.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly's challenge to the Ministers, Micheal Martin, Michael Woods and John O'Donoghue, is a brave attempt to focus the Government's attention on the urgency of making change. But the man we need to speak to is the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.
The Taoiseach's phone number is (+3531) 619 4020 or 619 4021. You can e-mail him through taoiseach@taoiseach.irlgov.ie, marking it for his attention. The reason why he is the only person who can deal with the childcare crisis is because he is the only one who can create a senior Minister for Children, blending duty of care with political muscle. That is what we must achieve.
Children and their various challenges must win at least the same status as Environment or Foreign Affairs. If not, we'll be stuck in this muddle for years to come. Think about it. The status of the child is lower than the status of a thoroughbred racehorse. Only people can make this change. Children have fared better under Bertie in this State. That is not to say they have fared well. His Government is the first to act on issues of institutional abuse, to start a proper national inspectorate, and to raise the level of support for healthy children's childcare. Better legislation did help.
But supports remain disgracefully inadequate. The much-heralded Ombudsman for Children he promised is still a paper dream. This column never believed a Children's Ombudsman ought to represent the apex of childcare policy, or saw merit in duplicating skills already demonstrated ably by the serving Ombudsman, Kevin Murphy, and his team. The suggestion looks good on paper, while allowing the Departments of Health, Education and Justice to retain their powers.
IT'S a classic Yes, Minister approach. And that, perhaps, is the whole point. Children slip through the main agenda. Their needs are caught up in the bureaucratic power plays that are as natural as breathing to so many Departments with different administrative cultures. Ask John O'Donoghue what his primary concern is as Minister for Justice, and you can bet he won't refer to the needs of the child. Justice is a macho Department, where even a blink signals vulnerability.
Ask Michael Woods his primary concern, and children may be a little higher on the list. Not a lot. His time is taken up with the teachers' unions; his officers, like Justice officials, fear a crisis round nearly every corner they face. They are still struggling to make Irish children literate, and facing further assaults on Relationships and Sexuality programmes scheduled to help people think for themselves. How can they put children first?
Micheal Martin? His junior Minister, Mary Hanafin, gave another classic response in the Dail when explaining her Department's response to the runaway raped and abused girl who is Mr Justice Kelly's latest foundling. We gave the relevant health authority everything they asked for, was the line of her reply. Yes, Minister, and without irony, we do know you care.
But we're not in a competition about caring. We care so much, and get so genuinely distressed about such cases, it seems almost impossible to work out how to do all the things the experts say they need. More social workers, better status and training for residential carers; better inter-departmental co-ordination, more and better-resourced foster homes - who is going to make this happen?
Attacks on the credibility and status of social workers and child counsellors over the last two years have worsened the problem. Political caution means senior civil servants and Ministers are in two minds about the next step because some fear conservative backlashes against the professionals and methods they need to employ.
Even more depressingly, Ireland Inc is still not up to speed with international conventions and practices on respect and care of children. Ireland's reluctance to embody European and United Nations conventions on human rights in its home legislation means the legal status of Irish children is little better than that of the Third World.
FINALLY, pecking orders within public service pay hierarchies mean negotiators are hampered from trebling the salaries of residential childcare workers. Anyway, professional hubris causes a reluctance to use even a short-term team of carefully selected volunteers.
We are talking at present about fewer than 50 chronically troubled children. Fewer than 500 children more need residential care and fewer than 4,000 need fostering or other forms of care intervention. This can be done.
The tragedy is it's not easy to love some of these children. They've been so abused and hurt their behaviour is extremely challenging. There are good people around, and many would give them consistent, caring support if they could. Most of us can't. So we have to do the best we can.
We can act as if we are their parents, we can take two minutes to encourage Government to put in place the best we can offer. Politicians need public support to make structural change. All they see at present is a lot of well-meaning but confused public concern.
What can you do? Focus on the politics. If it matters to you, tell the Taoiseach. The status of the child won't be raised until there is a powerful advocate with overall responsibility at Cabinet. If nothing happens, we can only blame ourselves next time round.
mruane@irish-times.ie