Children's ombudsman struggles in funds crisis [archives.tcm.ie]
- Published: 02 July 2009
THE Office of the Children's Ombudsman is taking longer to deal with the growing number of calls because of a lack of resources.
Figures show the office received 453 calls in the first six months of this year, including a record 113 calls in June following the publication of the Ryan report into child abuse.
The volume of calls is up 23% compared with the same period last year. Children's Ombudsman Emily Logan said the cases arising out of the contacts were increasingly complex. She told an Oireachtas Committee her budget allocation is €2.31m ; down from €2.46m last year.
Ms Logan said she has been meeting with officials at the Department of Health and Children to discuss the budgetary demands, but claimed: "I think we are struggling, to be perfectly honest."
She said "progress there [at the meetings] has been slow as far as I am concerned", that the workload in her office was at a "critical stage" and said the process of dealing with complaints made to the office on behalf of or by children was taking longer than before.
Ms Logan told the meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children that her office's budget had fallen by 6.5% at a time when the number of calls to her office were growing.
"For example, we currently have complaints that relate to child death, response to reports of rape, child protection, children in care of the State with complex needs and the lack of mechanisms to deal with inappropriate behaviour towards children," she said.
Ms Logan also told the committee that she intends to play a more active role in having draft legislation affecting children referred to her office.
She also said she has contacted the clerks of the Dáil and the Seanad as well as the Minister for Health Mary Harney to seek amendments to the Ombudsman for Children Act 2002, under which her office was established, as she said there were "deficits" in the Act.
Among other issues addressed at the committee, Ms Logan said her office had identified 129 separated children seeking asylum under the age of 18 living in the Dublin area and continues to meet with some of them.
She also said there was an urgent need for a children's death review mechanism, and that meetings had been held with coroners and the Director of Public Prosecutions, among others, in an attempt to overhaul the present system.
But she stressed she did not see the need for a new body, but instead for a co-ordinated approach that would independently investigate child deaths, especially those of vulnerable children in state care.
