Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I do not know Dr. Niall Muldoon but I suspect his qualifications are considerable, as he saw off competition from excellent advocates of children's rights such as Senator Jillian van Turnhout and others. I can only trust that his capability is considerable and I wish him well in his post.

Our examination of the appointment of a new ombudsman gives us the chance to look at the role of the office. We can consider this as a new juncture, look at what has been good about the office and what areas we might be able to strengthen. It has been quite a considerable success in many ways and we know the aims of the children's ombudsman are threefold. It examines and investigates complaints related to services, and the ombudsman has done a good job in this regard. It is notable that most of the complaints it has dealt with have come in under the headings of health and education, and in my experience it has played an incredibly positive note. The only warning sign is that the overwhelming bulk of complaints - 97% - come from adults rather than children, so we must pay more attention to the area. We must consider how to empower children to speak up for themselves more often.

With regard to service provision in general, the ombudsman has been an incredibly positive contributor. When we speak abstractly about children's rights, we cannot divorce the issue from the economic context in which our children are growing up, record levels of child poverty and growing rates of homelessness. There were 741 children sleeping in hostels in Dublin in November last year, which indicates that we must do more than talking about the rights of children. We must address their economic needs, and this issue is integrated with broader policies that contradict the neoliberal agenda being imposed by this Government.

The ombudsman has done very good work within the areas of advice for children's rights and research. There was the example of how the Roma children were dealt with and the racial profiling of Traveller children by An Garda Síochána. When Deputy Wallace and I tried to raise these issues in the House, we were referred to as being a "disgrace" by the former Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter. Nevertheless, it became obvious that racial profiling exists, so this is an area in which we must strengthen the ombudsman's hand. The office has a role to play, as there have been some very worrying trends. A child care reporting project revealed that one in every four child care cases ending in the courts involves parents where at least one parent was a member of an ethnic minority. African families are 20 times more likely to have a care order placed against their children. We know the policy is that it is best for children to be raised with their parents, and when they must be removed, it should be linked to a reunification plan. We must be cognisant that there can sometimes be cultural differences that are not understood and which must be factored in.

The first ten years of the ombudsman project have been largely beneficial but we must do more. I will put to the Minister a number of concrete measures in this respect. We need the children's ombudsman to be represented on the new Garda authority. It is a necessity and the ombudsman has spoken for this role. If the new Garda authority is to be meaningful and genuinely accountable, there is a role for the ombudsman on it. We need to have stronger actions against public bodies that breach children's rights, and there is not enough of a deterrent currently. We must examine mechanisms to do this. The issue of children languishing - incarcerated, in effect - in direct provision must be addressed and there must be a lifting of the children's ombudsman's ability to investigate children's rights in direct provision scenarios. We all know the efforts to do so have been thwarted by the Department of Justice and Equality, which is not good enough. If we are talking about cherishing all children of the nation equally, it must start with our most vulnerable. I am in favour of extending the powers of the ombudsman. The office has done a good job and it can be empowered to do an even better job.

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