Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)

It is clear from the contributions of the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, and others on the Government side that the Fianna Fáil-Green Government has no intention of bringing forward legislation to hold a referendum this year that would enshrine stronger rights for children in the Constitution.

The final report of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children was published in February with its agreed wording for a constitutional amendment. To get agreement across all parties in the Dáil was a major achievement. It is extremely disappointing that the Government has not followed up with the political will to implement the committee's recommendations. Our call is for the referendum to be held in 2010. Does the Government wish to see a year pass from the publication of the report before a referendum Bill is published?

The truth is that this Government has a very sorry record as far as the rights of children are concerned, and I include in that social and economic rights, as well as legal and constitutional rights. The less rights children have the better in the Government's eyes. This attitude is clear when we look at the fact that the Government has not only not upheld children's rights in the past, but actively worked against them. The number of children at risk of living in poverty is steadily on the rise because of the savage budget cuts that have reduced the level of support available to the most vulnerable in Irish society. The most vulnerable people in disadvantaged families are children.

Budgetary decisions have been taken purely on the basis of creating short-term savings which are making life harder for children who already have to deal with the ineptitude of a Government that has misdirected resources towards those who already have more in society, such as builders, developers and bankers.

In 2008, after years of record prosperity in the Irish economy, the figures for child poverty were shameful. According to Barnardo's, 6.3% of children continued to live in consistent poverty, amounting to 65,270 children. This compares with a consistent poverty rate of 1.7% among persons aged 65-74 and 1% among persons aged 75 or over. Consistent poverty means that these children are living in households with incomes below 60% of the national median income and experiencing deprivation based on eight agreed deprivation indicators. This can mean going for a whole day without a substantial meal or being cold because parents are unable to afford home heating.

Children continue to be the age-group most at risk of poverty, with a rate of 18% in 2008. This compares with an at risk poverty rate of 13.5% among people of working age. Children account for 38.7% of all those in consistent poverty, a shameful indictment of this Government and its predecessors. These are figures for 2008. Since then we have had three savage budgets that have cut social welfare, education and health services. We have seen the heartless slashing of the social welfare Christmas bonus on which families living in poverty depend so much.

Under-investment and under-resourcing in education, child protection, social welfare and family supports are a recurring agenda for the Government. We are consistently being told that there is no money, but conveniently there is a substantial amount of money when it comes to bailing out the banks.

Families are forced to turn to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and Barnardos or to moneylenders when the State fails yet again in its obligations. It should not be left to these already stretched organisations to cater for children purely because the Government would rather see the fat cats remain and children go hungry in prefab classrooms. Recent budgets have been consistently unfair to children. There has been no job creation for the unemployed parents of children in Ireland. Instead, the Government went after young people, those on low incomes and working families who are only barely surviving. Stimulus measures have been misdirected while €54 billion has been dished out to the banks. Of those in receipt of the family income supplement, 11% are public sector employees of the State.

We have been told that we have turned an economic corner. For parents who have to go to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to put food on the table, this corner is nothing but a figment of the Taoiseach's vivid imagination. Social welfare payments should have been ring-fenced and in some cases they should have been increased. The Government has had more than enough opportunity to do this. Sinn Féin and others presented alternatives but the Government chose not to listen.

In 2005, Senator Dan Boyle stated children are "twice as likely to be poor than adults in present day Irish society" and said that this was a statistic that should take away the self-satisfied glow that permeated Fianna Fáil. The Green Party, now that it is in Government, is singing a different tune. It has joined with Fianna Fáil in displaying its "indifference towards the issue of child poverty", which were Senator Dan Boyle's words and not mine.

The Children's Rights Alliance issued a report card that provided a comprehensive review of how the State performed in its services to children during 2009. The Government was given a D-grade. The failure to eliminate child poverty during the Celtic tiger era is a reflection of its attitude. At this stage, we should not expect any more. If Government Members had any belief in upholding children's rights, they would walk out of the Dáil in shame.

In my constituency I receive regular representations from the families of children, and from those charged with looking after them, concerning the impact of the current austerity measures on child care and educational facilities. These range from the ongoing unacceptable conditions that children in schools such as Scoil Eoin in Tralee and Blennerville national school have to endure, in buildings that are overcrowded, poorly kept and in urgent need of repair.

What kind of state allows children with autism in my county to go undiagnosed for up to a year because of a shortfall of staff? What kind of government allows children with psychiatric problems to go as long as four years before being assessed? Does anyone on the Government benches find it acceptable that children in Kerry with serious mental health problems are put on regular hospital wards because there is nowhere else for them to go?

Access to health care, housing and education are fundamental rights. They are not luxuries to be done away with in hard times. We need to copperfasten children's rights in the Constitution and Sinn Féin will continue to campaign until we achieve this aim. The Minister of State has a choice this evening, to sit there as he has done and pay lip-service to the fat cats and support them and bail out the bankers or for once in his life to stand by the children of the country who are in poverty.

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