Ombudsman for Children Strategic Plan 2016-2018

Opening Statement by Dr Niall Muldoon, Ombudsman for Children to the Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs - Wednesday, 20th July 2016

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Firstly, may I thank you Mr Chairman for allowing us to present this plan to you today and may I also congratulate you on your appointment as Chairman. I know the deep rooted dedication you have for children’sissues and particularly around the areas of education and out of home care. I wish you well in this new role and look forward to working with you and the entire Committee over the next few years to advance children’s rights in Ireland.

Soon after I became Ombudsman for Children in 2015 I decided to delay the development of a strategic plan to allow me to re-build the staffing levels of the Office which had been hit by a number of vacancies. With the positive support of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, I am glad to report that I have now returned the Office to a sufficient level of staffing so that I am confident of being able to set out and build toward a new three-year plan.

I am honoured to be able to speak, for the first time publically, about it here in the Committee most directly connected to the work of my Office. I am very grateful for your time today.

I will give you a quick outline of the work of the Office since I took over as Ombudsman for Children and then go straight to our Strategic Plan which takes us up to the end of 2018.

In 2014 we handled 1,600 complaints from the public in relation to issues where complainants believed the state had not provided adequately for children. The top three areas of complaints were Education (47%), issues around the Child and Family Agency (25%) and Health (11%). The figures for 2015, which will be published shortly in our Annual Report, show that the number of complaints to the Office continues to grow.

We also offered workshops and education in relation to children’s rights to 850 children and young people, as well as 130 post-graduates from 6 Institutions studying and working in areas such as social work, child care, social care, teaching andchild protection.

Last year the Office, as per our statutory obligations, provided advice to Government in relation to a number of bills and policies.

On 14th January of this year (2016), I spoke at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to outline our report on the progress of children’s rights in Ireland between 2006 and 2015 and to facilitate the Committee’s examination of the State’s performance in relation to children’s rights.I am glad to say that many of the recommendations we made to the Committee were included in their Concluding Observations to the Government which were issued in February of this year.

I was also pleased to present to three Oireachtas Committees last year;the Education and Social Protection Committee, the Public Services Oversight and Petitions Committee and the predecessor to this one – the Health and Children Committee. This was significant in highlighting the transparency and accountability of the Office, which we are eager to continue.

To develop the StrategicPlan I enlisted a consultant to interview a number of people, both in Ireland and abroad, who were aware of our Office and had varying connections with the children of Ireland and the issues which affect them. I also invited anyone who wished to contribute to write to us with a 500 word contribution and the consultant received those submissions directly to a separate email address. I am glad to say that we received a number of extremely useful and enlightening responses from that invitation. I am especially delighted to say that a number of teenagers took the time to write to us with their thoughts on what we should focus on over the next three years.

As you can imagine, with a remit that covers all 1.2 million children in Ireland and their interactions with all Public Bodies from birth to 18 years of age, our biggest problem was narrowing down our focus to a small number of areas. This took time and energy, and was achieved by carrying out a number of internal workshops which were facilitated by the consultant.We carefully considered all of the feedback we had received, beforedeciding that threeobjectives would be the optimum number to focus on, so that we could realistically aim to achieve something, without losing our capacity to continue working on all the other issues which naturally come to the Office.

In the paper before youwe have set out our Vision and Values which act as the guidance for me and my team. We spent a couple of months discussing and debating various wordings before settling on these and I am extremely proud of them because I believe they not only offer a clear sense of the way we want to work and behave, but they do so in a simple manner which can be easily understood by all. It wasa key criterion for me that this Strategy be written at a level that children and young people can understand, and that is what we present to you today.There is no, so called “adult version”. It is our goal that everything we write or produce can be clearly understood by children and young people, and thereafter by adults too.

OCO’s Vision

We want to see an Ireland where all children and young people are actively heard and respected so that they experience safe, fulfilling and happy everyday lives.

We will use our independence and powers to the fullest extent to bring this about.

If this vision should be the only message I convey today, then I will consider this presentation a success. I believe that the Ombudsman for Children’s Office now has a clear message and target for the next three years and it is one which both challenges and encourages me as the Ombudsman. If I can live in a country where every child experiences a safe, fulfilled and happy life EVERYDAY then I cannot tell you how proud I will be. But we all know that such a target will require the efforts of all of you here, and indeed the whole Dáil. It will also require the support of the greater public service and all the citizens of Ireland to bring about – but it is not impossible, and that is what is encouraging.

We have set out three objectives for the lifetime of this plan

Objective 1 / We will increase awareness of children and young people’s rights, the UNCRC and the role of OCO

This sets us on a course whereby children and adults grow in their understanding of what children’s rights are and how they can be achieved in the everyday of life. I hope to explore every avenue of possibility for enhancing the awareness of children’s rights and of this Office so that people know what their children are entitled to and who to come to if those rights are not fully achieved.

Objective 2 / We will work to build capacity among public organisations whose work impacts on children and young people to develop and implement a child rights based approach to their practice

This objective is to help public organisations to become more child conscious, to integrate child-friendly policies across all areas of their organisations. This would mean that the specific needs of children would be considered when it comes to education, health, housing and more. We have already initiated a piece of work to generate some tools to enhance child friendly administration and will be engaging with a number of Departments to move that project on in the near future.

Objective 3 / We will influence positive change for and with children and young people in Ireland

Finally, Objective 3 will require us to work across the three elements of our Act, that is we have powers in relation to advising Government around legislation and policy, we have an onus to highlight issues which are important to children themselves and we are empowered to take complaints for children whose voices are not always heard. Across the timespan of this plan my Office will continue to use those powers for all children but most especially for those with mental health issues and those who are homeless or disabled. I will also place a focus on ensuring that child protection is at its best in Ireland and that children who experience the trauma of abuse (in whatever form that might take) can feel safe to report it and also be assured that it will be dealt with immediately and they will get the required level of support when they require it.

What I have found in my position as Ombudsman is that the biggest struggles for children and parents are often not the biggest issues. For example:

  • Getting into a local school should not be difficult in a well-run, stable democracy that values children’s rights;
  • Gaining support to avoid declaring your family homeless should not be difficult in a fair and recovering economy;
  • A safe secure refuge should not be a fantasy for children and parents who flee from Domestic Violence
  • Being asked to provide financial and social support and a well-designed transition plan to help an 18 year old live an independent life, after years in the care of the State, should not come asa shock to Tusla or the State and should be easy to deliver on;
  • Getting access to a high quality counsellor in a school setting when you feel down, or need someone to confide in, should not be a total fantasy for teenagers in a country that sells itself as having the best educated population in the English speaking world;
  • For parents of a child born into this world with a severe disability, physical or intellectual, having to fight for assistance with every aspect of that child’s care, and at every new developmental stage, should not become the norm in a country that “cherishes all children equally”;
  • When you have fostered two severely disabled children, getting financial support to purchase a specially adapted car should be easy, not a never ending battle. Especially when this country is crying out for families to foster children and give them the love and care and support that they crave.

Deputies - it is the small, everyday things that matter to our children and that bring about happiness, and I will use all my powers to bring equality to all children who seek it and I will conclude by quoting Archbishop Tutu of South Africa who said

“Do a little bit of good where you are, it is those little bits of good which, when put together, overwhelm the world”

Thank You – I am happy to take any questions you might have.