Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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9. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her plans to ban corporal punishment within the home and alternative care settings; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38705/13]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Considerable progress has been made to restrict the use of corporal punishment in Ireland. Corporal punishment in schools is banned, and regulations for creches, foster care and residential settings address the use of appropriate discipline. Corporal punishment in the home, while not specifically outlawed, is governed by the provisions of section 246 of the Children Act, 2001. Section 246 makes it an offence to assault, ill-treat, neglect, abandon or expose a child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to the child's health or seriously affect his or her wellbeing. A limited defence of reasonable chastisement exists in common law for parents and persons acting in loco parentis, but successful high profile prosecutions have been taken by the State under section 246 where parents are deemed to have used excessive or unreasonable force in disciplining children.

My Department is reviewing the complex policy, legal and constitutional issues involved and is also currently engaged with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Attorney General's Office to respond formally to the European Committee of Social Rights of the Council of Europe (CoE) in respect of matters raised through the committee around the banning of corporal punishment in all settings. The Government has been invited to make a submission to the Committee on the merit of the complaint and it is my intention to do so. In responding, the submission will allude to the significant progress which continues to be made in relation to the Government’s commitment to protect the rights of children, including the proposal to amend the Constitution in relation to children’s rights, the enactment of a suite of relevant DCYA and Justice legislation, and progress in relation to fundamental reform of the child protection services, the establishment of the Child and Family Agency, and drafting legislation in relation to putting Children First on a statutory basis. I will be keeping my Cabinet colleagues fully updated in this matter and will be discussing with them the full range of policy options available.

There is a balance to be found between supporting parents in effective parenting, in particular, in use of non-violent forms of discipline, and the use of criminal law to impose criminal sanctions on parents who do not adhere to best practice in parenting. It is important to note that the general development of norms within Ireland and positive support and encouragement to parents has brought about a situation where physical punishment is increasingly avoided.

Recent research from the longitudinal study of children in Ireland shows that the great majority of parents do not use smacking as a form of discipline. The most frequently used method of discipline was "discussing / explaining why the behaviour was wrong and this discipline strategy was used by almost ninety percent of mothers (88%). Less than one percent (0.5%) of mothers reporting smacking their children "regularly or always".