Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights treaty setting out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. Compliance is monitored by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Governments of countries that have ratified the Convention are required to report to, and appear before, this committee periodically to be examined on their progress with regards to the advancement of the implementation of the Convention and the status of child rights in their country. Their reports and the committee's written views and concerns are widely available, including on the committee's website.

Ireland signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 30 September 1990, and ratified it, without reservation, on 21 September 1992. The first National Report under the Convention was submitted in 1996. Arising from the concluding observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child issued in 1998, the then government established the office of Ombudsman for Children and drew up a national children's strategy. The second National Report under the Convention was submitted in 2005.

As part of the monitoring process interested NGOs are invited to submit their observations to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. It is perfectly normal that individuals and groups such as CITCAAT will refer to the Convention in seeking to advance their position. The purpose of human rights covenants and conventions is that they be used to measure the performance of States in promoting and defending human rights.

As regards this Department, the parents involved with the CITCAAT group are campaigning on behalf of autistic children and seeking support for autism sufferers. While the Department of Social Protection has no responsibility for most of the issues raised, the domiciliary care allowance is of particular interest to this group. In order to qualify for domiciliary care allowance a child must have a disability so severe that it requires the child needing care and attention and/or supervision substantially in excess of another child of the same age. This care and attention must be given by another person, effectively full-time so that the child can deal with the activities of daily living. The child must be likely to require this level of care and attention for at least 12 months.

In the period 1st January 2010 to 30th June 2010 a total of 220 applications with a medical condition of autism/autism spectrum disorder were fully processed by the Department's Medical Assessors. 136 (62%) of these applications were deemed to satisfy the medical criteria and 84 were disallowed. This compares with the current success rate on first application across all disabilities of approximately 40%.

I am confident that the supports for children provided by this Department fully meet our commitments under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.