Advocates call for ‘children’s budget’ at Cork event

LEADERS in child protection and welfare have described the upcoming budget as “a really critical time and a huge opportunity to invest” in the area, calling for adequate funding for services supporting children.

Speaking at the Children’s Rights Alliance’s discussion at Nano Nagle Place in Cork city yesterday about child welfare and alternative care, Conor O’Mahony, lecturer and deputy dean of the School of Law at UCC, said the budget is a critical time to invest in services.

“At a time where we hear a lot of talk about the unprecedented resources that are available to the Irish Government coming into the next couple of budget cycles, this is really a critical time and a huge opportunity to invest in this area,” said Prof O’Mahony.

“We’re at a very critical juncture in the whole area of child protection in Ireland at the moment.”

Dr Sharon Lambert of the School of Applied Psychology at UCC said supporting children is a good investment, as it saves the State money in the long term.

“It’s not dramatic to say that our mental health systems, disability care systems, and child protection systems are crumbling, the numbers speak for themselves,” said Dr Lambert.

 “The services that support children should be adequately funded. It’s going to cost you more money in the long term if you don’t adequately fund child services now.”

The alliance called for a ‘children’s budget’ to make crucial investments to address issues in the system in a real and impactful way. It said measures could include targeting investment to increase Tusla’s overall funding by a minimum of 10%; providing Tusla with additional resources to increase investment in community- and voluntary-sector-funded organisations; ringfencing an increase of 1% of Tusla’s budget for family support services; and increasing the foster carer payment to reflect inflation since 2009.

Children’s Rights Alliance chief executive Tanya Ward said that while the Government has committed to addressing child poverty with the establishment of a six-person unit within the Department of An Taoiseach, recent reports have lifted the lid on a seismic gap between current funding, resources and staff, and the demand surge for support.

“Children’s services the length and breadth of the country are crying out for support to meet this demand, to manage soaring waiting lists, and to desperately reach children most in need of urgent or specialised support,” she said. “Without significant investment in these services, it is children who will be the ones picking up the pieces of a broken system.”