Apologies have been received by Senator Bradley.

On the agenda for this morning is a discussion on Ireland's pathway to incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Irish law. We are joined by representatives of the Office of the Ombudsman for Children: Dr. Niall Muldoon, the Ombusdman for Children, Dr. Tricia Keilthy, director of policy, and Ms Dalila Pinto, senior policy officer. They are all very welcome.

Before we begin, I wish to advise members that by the agreement of the Dáil on 30 June, Deputy Aidan Farrelly has been discharged as a member of this committee and Deputy Daniel Ennis has been appointed in his place. I want to offer him our congratulations and our warmest welcome to the committee. I hope he will be as engaging as his predecessor. We thank Deputy Farrelly for his commitment to the committee over the past year. He worked very respectfully with all members and I am sure Deputy Ennis will do the same and is very welcome. I wish Deputy Farrelly every success in his new role as party spokesperson on youth and transport.

For members joining on MS Teams, I advise them the chat function should only be used to make the team on site aware of any technical issues or urgent matters that may arise and should not be used to make general comments or statements during the meeting. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement.

Before I invite Dr. Muldoon to make his opening statement, I know he will be well aware of parliamentary privilege. Witnesses are all protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentation they make to the committee. This means they will have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Dr. Muldoon will be given five minutes for his opening statement and that will be followed by questions and answers from our members.

I thank the committee for the invitation to discuss Ireland’s pathway to incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Irish law. I am really encouraged by the invitation and the implicit recognition of the importance of the UNCRC for children’s rights. As members all know, full and direct incorporation is a key strategic goal of our office and I am delighted to have the opportunity to expand on this with the committee today.

In many ways Ireland is a wonderful place to be a child, with the vast majority enjoying a safe and happy childhood, but is Ireland the best country in Europe in which to be a child, to quote the aspirations of a former Taoiseach? Not yet, we think. The persistent and structural issues impacting children who come to my office, and indeed before this committee, demonstrate that the State is still falling short on delivering the security and certainty to enjoy the full suite of rights that, by ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992, Ireland has already said are rightly theirs. We believe incorporation of the 42 rights of the UNCRC into law is the single most important thing we can do to protect and safeguard the rights of all children in Ireland. Given that it has been 33 years since ratification, we believe incorporation is the natural next step in fully implementing the UNCRC in Ireland. Putting children’s rights into law provides a framework for accountability, puts children at the heart of everything we do and gives them the opportunity to claim their rights.

We have just taken over the Presidency of the European Council and will next year bid for a place on the UN Human Rights Council. With the eyes of Europe upon us and with the goalposts shifting on how rights are upheld worldwide, we have a real opportunity to show that Ireland is a true leader in Europe on children’s rights and that at a time when many are walking away from international commitments, Ireland will walk towards them.

The reality is that children’s rights are not comprehensively or consistently protected in Irish law. The State’s approach to children’s rights so far has been piecemeal, with the State choosing to partially incorporate only some of the fundamental principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC, in specific areas such as family law but we all know that this is not enough. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child repeatedly expressed concern over Ireland’s approach in its concluding observations in 2016 and 2023. Incorporation does not create new rights for children. It simply codifies existing rights that the State already agreed to in domestic law. So, Ireland already sees itself as having these responsibilities towards children. It is important to point out, too, that we are not starting from scratch, as Young Ireland: National Policy Framework for Children and Young People 2023-2028, already commits to indirect incorporation of the UNCRC through commitments in relation to child budgeting, child rights capacity building and training, and child rights impact assessments. Full and direct incorporation would mean that these commitments are mainstreamed across all Departments.

The Department of Children, Disability and Equality commissioned and received almost 12 months ago a comprehensive independent report on Ireland's legislative compliance with the UNCRC. This will be critical in setting out current gaps in legislation and the best pathway forward. We urge the Department to publish this report as soon as possible in order to inform the work of this committee. Though the pathway to incorporation will require concerted commitment and effort across Government, we can look to countries like Scotland, Norway and Sweden, which have shown that it can be done. It would force a rethink in how decisions are made across the Civil Service and there may be resistance to change initially, but as Mark Twain alluded to, true progress only comes as a result of change. For legislators and policymakers, it would improve the policy-making process because children’s rights would be baked in from the start, leading to greater savings and much greater efficiencies for the State further down the line. It would mean that these rights were not an add-on but were fundamental to how we developed and designed laws and policies and delivered public services for children.

Children’s issues are continually fighting for the Government’s attention at a time of global and economic uncertainty when all of our public services are under pressure. While we are seeing more efforts to listen to the voices of children and we welcome those increased levels of meaningful youth participation, it is still optional. Decisions continue to be made with little or no consideration of the rights and needs of children, especially when it comes to investing in services that support them. Our annual report for 2025 highlights consistent issues around the resourcing of children’s services. We see this every year through the complaints we receive about waiting lists for housing, assessment of need, children's disability network team services and primary care services, the lack of school places, and child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. We have repeatedly said that budgets are all about choices. At the moment, our budget process is not child centred. We only need to look to the €38 million spent on private special emergency arrangements in 2025 as an example.

Most important, children want this and do not have time to wait. Our youth advisory panel is a key driving force in our campaign. At the first event with approximately 150 children and young people in October last year, there was a strong mandate from them for us to push for the change they sought.

We also have strong public support for incorporation. In a recent representative survey of 500 people aged 16 to 24 carried out by the IPSOS B&A research company on our behalf, nearly two thirds were supportive of incorporation, including 30% who said they would actively advocate for it and 35% who generally supported it. A further 26% remained open to the idea but required more information before taking a clear position, and only 6% expressed opposition or significant concerns, with 3% remaining unsure.

At a time when world leaders are challenging the international human rights legal order, a commitment to incorporate the UNCRC would send a strong signal to other member states that Ireland takes the UN human rights system very seriously. Where there is growing cynicism about whether international law matters and where rights are in the balance, our small country on the edge of Europe would send a clear message - they matter here.

I thank Dr. Muldoon. I was at that event with 150 delegates and some of their support workers from the various organisations. It was very powerful. I hear him on the mandate; that certainly came across that day loud and clear.

It is proposed to publish the opening statements on the Oireachtas website. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Before I call members, I remind them that they will be allocated seven minutes of speaking time. This allocation must include the response from the witnesses. For our new member, I am very strict on time in the first round out of respect for the fact that we have people with competing committees and questions. I am always very strict on the first round and I sometimes offer a little more flexibility in the second. I hope we will get to a second round of questioning. Members can indicate to me if they wish to ask additional questions.

I ask members when they put their questions to make sure that they strictly adhere to the agenda topic under consideration at this meeting. I will now call members in the order of the speaking rota that was circulated.

We are looking at ideal models. What would be the ideal model we could adopt? How does Dr. Muldoon see that being incorporated? He said something very interesting, namely, that there would be resistance to change. What would that be? What would the long-term benefits of that change be if it did happen?

If we look at the most recent incorporation, which happened in Scotland, it took a single Bill to incorporate the UNCRC into its law. It essentially says that all legislation, policy and procedure within the Scottish Government has to be compliant with children's rights. Everybody has to look at that now when making a decision or a choice and ask whether it is compliant with children's rights. If not, it becomes judicable. You can go to court to protect the rights of your children. We see that as the simplest way.

On resistance to change, people have been doing their jobs for years; everybody is resistant to change over time. We have already been told that this is not the way we do things and we do it by indirect incorporation, which means piecemeal. I have been in this job for 12 years. I did not look for incorporation for the first six, seven or eight years. I started looking at it in the two or three years after that, but in the past two years I have said to myself that I am now coming to the end of my second term and am in the second crisis for the same issue. The Government and Departments have said that they would fix it in the first crisis when we made recommendations, but they have not. The piecemeal approach is not working. Legislation, policy and procedure are not being changed to put children at the heart of decisions. I felt the only way forward was this massive game-changer, which means that civil servants, public servants and anybody involved with the Government has to start thinking as soon as they make any decision, at the start of their work day, that it has to be compliant with children's rights.

There will be resistance. The Department of children has already said it does not do it this way - it does not incorporate things, it does it piecemeal. To its credit, and as a result of recommendations from the UN committee, it brought Professor Ursula Kilkelly in two and a half years ago to look at where the gaps in legislation were. However, that report has been sitting on the desk for 12 months. It has not been published, so we do not know where the gaps are. Even when the gaps are identified, the past 33 years tell us they have not been filled. Instead of arguing one piece on childcare, another on housing and a third on justice, put in one Bill that makes it very clear as to where the focus is. That is the huge piece we want to do.

The resistance to change will come from that different way of doing things. People will be afraid that they will be sued. We have been engaging regularly with our colleagues in Sweden, Norway and Scotland. It has not led to a huge increase in lawsuits. Rather, it has led to a huge increase in the value of lawsuits that come forward because they do not just fix it for child A, but for all children like child A. The legislation and courts are able to do that. The benefit comes from there and once there are a couple of lawsuits, as we all know, that changes behaviour. People will stop making the same mistakes. They will start to change the system themselves so that they do not end up in court. That is what has not been happening until now. There have been individual lawsuits and the State has been able to say it was an individual situation and we do not have to change it for everyone. That is where the huge benefit to us would be.

I will ask Dr. Keilthy to comment.

From speaking to our colleagues in Scotland, the most immediate change has been in culture, changing how the policy-making process is done and thinking about children at the outset rather than at the end or as an optional add-on. That makes for better policy-making because you consider the range of impacts it may have on children and the resources required. Over the long term, you are investing early in children, which will lead to greater savings for the State further down the line. It is about a cultural change and ensuring that civil servants are understanding around children's rights, how to carry out child rights impact assessments and managing budgets so that they are compliant with children's rights as well.

Basically, we would have better, stronger legislation if we adopted this model. Is that the way Dr. Muldoon looks at this?

That is correct. We can see it very clearly in the Departments of the environment and housing. They are legally obliged to look at the environmental impact of their housing decisions. The Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, did the piece about beds in sheds. I am sorry but I am not sure what the legislation is. He said the Department spent six weeks on an environmental impact assessment of that legislation. Departments have never spent six weeks looking at the impact on children in any legislation. Straight away, that creates a different way of doing things. It becomes more efficient and prevents things ahead of time, which means money does not have to be spent at the other end when the mistakes have been made and there are complaints. From our point of view, cultural change is a huge thing. Ten years from now, civil servants will hopefully be doing it without knowing why they are doing it. It would be automatically built into the work process.

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their contributions and the work they do. I somewhat lament or regret the necessity for the Office of the Ombudsman for Children and how busy it is, but it is an important office. I compliment the witnesses on their work. Reviewing the report from the UN in 2023 on our implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to read it as a whole, all of the issues outlined in it are important. I ask specifically about the issue of children of minority groups and those in disadvantaged circumstances. I imagine that when Dr. Muldoon's office receives cases or complaints, there is an ethnic identifier. Is the evidence overwhelming that it is children of disadvantaged and minority groups who are suffering and creating the need to bring cases to the office?

That is an interesting question. We would not necessarily look for identifiers but oftentimes we will know from the nature of the complaint. I need to check this but I do not think it would be overwhelming. My concern in that respect is that disadvantaged people sometimes do not know about our office or do not have an advocate who will come to us. We are currently looking at a seriously disadvantaged area where there is a lot of crime and so on and the supports going into it for crèches, national schools and secondary schools may not be sufficient. There are arguments over DEIS plus and who is in the DEIS plus schools and DEIS plus areas. We are very much aware of children in disadvantage across the country. There are also disadvantaged groups. We are working with Travellers, children in detention, children in LGBT groups and children in other areas. Even if we do not get complaints, we work in those areas. If the Deputy looks through our publications, he will see that we frequently engage with them.

Would it be an advantage to have an ethnic identifier in the system?

I will take a look at it. It could be useful for us to know. We receive approximately 1,700 or 1,800 complaints a year. It would be interesting to see it and go back over it. Let me take that under advisement and see.

I am concerned by Dr. Muldoon's acknowledgement that disadvantaged children and children from ethnic minorities may not have a support mechanism to ensure they can make complaints as required. The State should also examine that. The UN report set out four recommendations on the persistent discrimination against children from minority and disadvantaged groups. It is difficult to interpret whether all of the recommendations have been dealt with or addressed. If we were to introduce legislation, would a further UN review of our implementation of the UN convention have fewer recommendations?

I do not think that would be the case by the time of the next review because the reviews are usually every five years. It would probably be a bit tight to be able to say that. The UN would certainly be strongly in favour of us starting to incorporate it. That would be a big step forward from the UN committee's point of view. By the following review, five years after that, it would have to start seeing a huge change because we would be focusing earlier and quicker on these children and budget decisions would be more in favour of the child than they would have been at any time previously.

The UN report makes a substantial and interesting recommendation regarding the issue of birth registration and nationality. Would that be a common caseload area for the Ombudsman for Children's office?

I would not have the data on that.

It is important to say that if we incorporated the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, we would have a stronger basis to adhere to Article 2, which is in relation to non-discrimination. Incorporation would ensure that children, regardless of their immigration status or whether they are a member of an ethnic minority, would be addressed in terms of that article in relation to ensuring there is equality between children. Issues around birth registration do come to our office. It is important to recognise that this is an ongoing issue.

There are a number of recommendations in the area of access to appropriate information, one of which is that there be further development of regulations and safeguarding policies to protect the rights and safety of children in the digital environment. This committee has done a lot of work on that. I am conscious that the witnesses are here to speak specifically about placing the UN convention on a legislative footing, but, in a general sense, would they say that we have addressed those issues since the report?

I think so. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child made a general comment on the digital age back in 2022, so it was very much aware of what was coming up. However, even the committee knew by 2024 that it was out of date because AI and all these other things had overtaken it. Every country has caught up with that information and is trying to fix it. I would not say we are ahead of the curve yet, but we are certainly doing as much work as any other country is. With our huge technological base, we have probably done more than most countries. From our point of view, there has definitely been progress in that regard.

That is heartening because it is an area of much concern.

If we had incorporation, there would be a duty on social media companies to carry out children's rights impact assessments to ensure the online world is safe for children and respects their rights. It would give a stronger basis to have action on these important issues that are affecting children.

That alone should be a good incentive for us to do so.

I am looking at the recommendations and trying to get a sense of the workload involved in implementing them. The only other recommendation from the time that stands out to me is in the area of mental health for young children and young children from minority groups. I am also a member of the Joint Committee on Key Issues Affecting the Traveller Community. The data shows that rates of suicide among the Traveller community are astronomical, which is very concerning. In terms of the workload of the Office of the Ombudsman for Children, is the office helping minority groups who feel they have not had appropriate service provision from mental health organisations.

The Deputy will see from my history as ombudsman that I am a psychologist by background. Mental health was therefore a huge focus over three strategic plans. At the end of the third strategic plan, I was so frustrated that we had not made as much progress as we wanted to make across those areas. We have a report titled "Take my Hand", for which we listened to children in inpatient mental health units. They were children from different backgrounds. In the Oberstown facility, there are children with mental health issues from different backgrounds as well. We are very much aware of them, but we have not made the progress we wanted to make. CAMHS and primary care are not as strong as we want them to be. There is less access, particularly for Travellers, because we have lost the mobile health unit that used to help Travellers all over the country. That used to provide huge support but it has been taken away. Travellers are, I think, 12 times more likely to commit suicide than any other grouping. With a population of under 40,000, that number is huge and very scary. We have a lot of work to do in that area.

I thank the witnesses for being here this morning and for their opening statement. One of the first comments that Dr. Muldoon made is that Ireland is not the best country in Europe to be a child. Could he speak to us a little on the real, practical issues facing children today that make the passing and implementation of this legislation, as it would be, so important?

I asked if we were the best country. I certainly do not think we are yet. As regards the real issues, I will start with the big ones.

These are health and education. In education, again, we have been fighting for school places for children with special educational needs and the planning for school places. Year on year, we have seen that the Department of Education and Youth is not supported to have a five-year building plan. It is supported to have an annual building plan. Therefore, you are proposing and preparing things but we all know it takes five years to build something, and then you are not sure if you will be able to commit the following year to follow through on it. That is not in the best interests of children.

We also have lack of data as to who needs support. This week, I chatted to people in different agencies where there is still no connection between early years where they have AIM, which is support for children in special education. They do not automatically pass that information on who is using that to the Department or to the next school - the primary school. That sort of joined-up connection would be changed and the culture would change if everybody within the Government had the legal obligation to do things in line with the UNCRC. That is within special education needs.

Generally within education, we also have the assessment of needs difficulty but on the wider space, we have children with different needs within the education system who are not being supported whether they are LGBT children or children with dental issues, who we know are falling behind in education. Overall healthcare is falling behind within it and it is those sort of areas we are following up on with complaints.

Going wider into the health system, if you look at any of our reports, it can be seen that we have been fighting for the right to scoliosis operations in a timely fashion. We never said what the timeline should be but it should be clinically timely. In 2017, a huge effort went into it. There was a big blow-up because we created a report. We spoke with the Minister at the time. A huge effort went into it for probably 18 months or maybe two years. It slipped away again, which is the nature of the round-robin single issue annual report as opposed to multi-annual commitments. What frustrates me is when there is a crisis, there is a response and a follow-through for a period of time but then it falls off until the next crisis comes. This is what should stop. This round-robin crisis followed by crisis should stop. We should create a situation where when the first crisis comes along, we then say, "Okay, how do we stop this for the future?". It means changing the way we budget and the way we look at the impact of decisions and it means that four or five years down the line, we should not have this crisis coming up again.

Deputy Connolly spoke about mental health, which is an area that has been in crisis for years. Again, there is a lack of forward planning and a lack of putting the child at the centre of it. That system was built around the professionals. We have been saying this regularly and members can check any of the quotes.

Children are still not in the housing legislation. They are seen as an add-on to the adults who are in the house. Again, this is simple stuff. When we go to these other countries, we see that is a huge change because the local authorities have to consider what the best interests of the child are in a scenario, which changes things completely. They have to plan for it and make sure the houses are appropriate. They have to make sure the houses they build have playgrounds and have access for everybody. Those are the sort of areas that will constantly change. This one change will not happen overnight but over ten years it would make a huge difference.

A lot of that is really basic stuff in terms of forward planning, planning properly, looking at it not annually but multi-annually and cross-departmental engagement, which should not be beyond any of us in terms of any fear of the consequences of doing what we need to do. These are basic things.

The independent review remains unpublished almost 12 months later. There are lots of reports that come and go. They go to the Minister and we wait a period of time for them to be published. That is fairly standard but the fact it is coming up to 12 months is of concern. Perhaps that is something this committee can follow up on as well. Was there an expectation that it would be published? Was a date given or is the ombudsman still waiting and it could come any day?

In the last communication we had with the Department, we understood it was with the Attorney General because it will be looking at a review of legislation. That is our understanding in relation to the current status of the report. This piece of work is so significant. Ireland is one of the few countries that has commissioned this so the Department is to be commended on it. For example, Scotland did not look at compliance before it incorporated and now it is trying to do it retrospectively. We will be in an excellent position having this piece of analysis already done if we were to go ahead with incorporation, which we hope will happen. It is vitally important to the discussion that is happening here and more broadly around the UNCRC.

That is really important then because it should give us almost a head start in what we need to do.

It has been done by Professor Ursula Kilkelly, who is world-renowned. Ireland has some of the best legal minds in regards to the incorporation of the UNCRC. We really would be top class in that regard.

Dr. Muldoon mentioned when this will be in place and where a right is not there in practice that there will be access to justice in terms of the Judiciary and going through the courts. We have seen a lot of that in terms of the assessment of need and the six months. Obviously, nobody wants to see anyone having to go to court to have their rights vindicated. It is not where we want to be but given that is happening, and we are still seeing very large waiting lists for assessment of need and cases continuing, how confident is Dr. Muldoon that this would be as good as it could be?

That is a great example. Assessment of needs is a fantastic example because if we had incorporation in place now, we would not be allowed to bring that piece of law into place because that piece of law only allows the assessment of needs and not the services. That is not in the best interests of the child. You would have said, "Okay, you can have a legal obligation to the assessment of need and the services". That is a really great example of why we need to change it now.

What Dr. Muldoon is saying is that assessment of need was a piece of legislation that gave a right. As every parent knows, you can vindicate the right of a child to get an assessment of need and many times because of the delays that is what they do, but it does not give the child any right to a therapy. Dr. Muldoon is saying that with full implementation of the legislation as regards the UNCRC, it would be about the overall rights of that child to get all that he or she needs in relation to where assessment meets therapies. I often think on some level, we become siloed on the issues. In fairness, people defend that one right they have. Regarding some of the proposals the ombudsman is getting from Government, nobody has looked at this holistically in the sense of here are the resources we have and here are the likely resources we have even if we do everything right.

At this point in time, we are trying to fill primary care and the CDNTs and are talking about in-reach teams and whatever else. The big fear is that while people will still have a right to an assessment of need, in a year or two years' time, we could still be in the same scenario where none of this has moved on. If we are looking at it holistically, and looking at the Disability Act and the fundamental needs of the child, we would say that here are the resources we have and here is the best way we can implement this. We must then look at absolutely novel ideas in the sense of what they do in Portugal where they moved away from a similar system and just put everything into inclusive education with universal supports and more tiered supports beyond that. That is what Dr. Muldoon is saying. He is also saying that this is the perfect checklist that ensures everything we do from now on ensures that we are delivering for children.

What the Deputy is talking about is a child's rights impact assessment. There is no way the assessment of need part of that Act would have got through. We are looking at the impact on the child's rights. We are going to give them one little piece and we know there were worries about resources. That is not the way it needs to be. Worry about the child and the resources have to be adjusted accordingly. The Children (Care, Care Experience, and Services Planning) (Scotland) Act 2026 contains a very strong legal framework for children that includes a statutory right to independent advocacy and a legal requirement to keep siblings together. It also expands aftercare up to the age of 26, strengthens support for kinship carers to give them parity with foster carers, legislates for increases in foster care payments in line with inflation and aims to eliminate the monetisation and marketisation of children's care for 2030.

A child rights impact assessment, CRIA, would look and say that 70% of a budget was being spent on private care that does not give us the service we need for the children we want to have it. We are spending €14,000 a week on special emergency accommodation, SEA, but we are only spending €450 a week on payments to foster carers. The holistic approach is exactly what will come from this. It will be the checklist that will examine if we have these aspects in place in a way that means that, over the period in question, we will have spent money in the best interests of the child all the time.

I would say it is even worse than that. Dr. Muldoon spoke about the reactive system we have. If we are talking about the SEAs, we get a very bad news story and then, suddenly, SEAs are not being used. People on the ground involved with Tusla, and others, would say that the fact is they cannot use SEAs at the minute, but they still have the same children with needs and nowhere to put them. We probably then find imperfect solutions. If we are talking about this coming down to resources, the threshold for children to be taken into care has probably become a lot higher. Across the board, therefore, it is fair to say a greater number of children are being failed. I am not giving out about the organisation. I am just saying that we do not have the resources to deal with the needs out there, and what Dr. Muldoon is saying is that we just need to put these fundamental protections in place from a legal standpoint. Again, this is not just down to the legislation. Legislation is no good without resourcing and planning.

That is exactly right and it is what child rights budgets suggest. The Deputy will have heard me complain here that Tusla made applications over the last five years for business cases, and only got 48% of what it asked for. This leaves us with a situation where we can automatically assume we are going to have to spend for-crisis money. Not being in an annual budget means this money just comes out of those funds set aside for crises. It then looks like Tusla is overspending when, in fact, we have not thought over the long term that it needs this investment now to reduce the number of private carers so it is possible for it to increase what it has control over.

We do not have enough direct care settings, foster carers, although I accept the difficulty of getting those, social workers and social care workers. The fundamental problem in all of this is that we know what the need is, but we talk around it in circles and nobody says this is exactly what we need. As I said in my initial point, when I am talking about the CDNTs, and whatever else, we have not looked, recognised we are failing children and asked what the best we can offer is for next week and then over the next two to three years. On some levels, the reason there are alternatives, such as the autism protocol, etc., is that this is only about dealing with the bad news story of more than 20,000 children being on the assessment of need, AON, waiting list.

Incorporation would give a strong mandate for Departments to work better together. With a lot of these issues, children's lives do not fit neatly into different silos. They cut across a number of different remits. It also places obligations on the Department of Finance and the Department of public expenditure and reform to ensure they are considering children's rights when they are planning budgets. For most countries, if we look at a child rights impact assessment, there would be multi-annual budgets so services can be planned effectively on that basis.

That is a real plan.

Yes.

Dr. Keilthy spoke about Scotland. It was in a better place a lot faster in regard to having a single point of access and there being no wrong door. People there can go to the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, with all the varying issues, whether that is ADHD, autism or whatever else, and the best path is found. On the other hand, we are talking about doing this and some of it is happening, but we are very late to the game and it is imperfect.

I welcome Deputy Ennis to the fold and thank Deputy Farrelly for his co-operation and input during his tenure with us. I am looking forward to working with Deputy Ennis.

I welcome all the witnesses and thank them. They do fantastic work. As my colleague said, it is sad to see that the office is so busy, but we should be very grateful that it exists and it is doing the best it can.

The statement highlighted ongoing issues with housing, disability services, etc. How would incorporation of the UNCRC improve outcomes for children facing these challenges in practical terms and not just from the point of view of legal obligation?

I thank the Senator. She asks an important question because I know everybody in the room wants to make sure we are actually having a positive impact on the lives of children. This again goes back to the point Dr. Muldoon made, that better policymaking results in better outcomes for children. What is important is that the default position would be early intervention and prevention and thinking about children from the start. This would give much better outcomes for children in the long term.

If we had incorporation, we could point to a number of different examples of what this could lead to. If housing was being planned in a local area, for example, the local authorities would have to consider the rights of children. This would include asking if there is access to play and recreation facilities and green space and how children would grow up in the environment. Children would be talked to as well because incorporation would give stronger effect to Article 12 in relation to listening to the voices of children. Children would have their voices taken into account when policies are being developed concerning them.

This committee has done a lot of work on online safety. If we look at the regulation of artificial intelligence, AI, Bill, now going through the Oireachtas, it does not mention children. There is no recognition of the impact of AI on children. If we had incorporation, however, we would have a much stronger basis for children to be considered in legislation and legal frameworks from the outset. Again, this would ensure that outcomes for children would be much better.

Dr. Keilthy mentioned Scotland, Norway and Sweden as examples of successful incorporation. What lessons from these jurisdictions should we prioritise and what pitfalls could we avoid?

Coincidentally, I happened to be speaking to my Swedish colleague in relation to this. Incorporation, which was done in Sweden in 2020, has been found to have hugely increased efficiencies across the services because people were thinking ahead, planning ahead and working together. There is a sense that it is about one topic, which is the child, as opposed to how to keep my system going, your system going, etc. Sweden started to smooth out the systems and then the efficiencies started to come. One of the selling points in Scotland as well was that incorporation creates a more efficient service.

My colleague also said that the civil servants, ironically, despite finding it a difficult change, have a lot more support because if they decide to help a child, they can say it is in the best interests of the child because they have looked at X, Y and Z. In turn, this does not make it a precedent, so it is possible to support them in being flexible. Lots of civil servants in lots of situations are doing very good work in doing things slightly outside the box. This gives them a real checklist again to ask if they can do something for these children because they are not the same as every other child in the system. It gives them support and they feel more confident as well. I ask my colleagues to comment on anything else that may have come from Scotland, Norway or Sweden.

It has also brought a cultural shift in the way children are seen and looked at. It has made children more central to any decision, be it at a policy or legislative level. It has also brought more accountability and, of course, legal certainty, but also the possibility of justiciability of children's rights. As Dr. Muldoon said, what we know from Scotland is that the fact that incorporation took place did not open the floodgates of litigation. The cultural shift is as important as the legislative strength. This is extremely important because it brings about an awareness of children's rights among all government departments, the courts and the public and puts children at the centre of every decision made.

I am a great believer that the people who are directly affected should be involved from the start in any process. What role should our children and young people play in the Government's approach to incorporation and how can we involve them?

The Senator is speaking our language. We started this whole process with the public event with 150 young people in October of last year. We will continue that. Any of the meetings we have always have young people at them and we will take our lead from them. From our point of view, that is the way the Government should do it. We have been involved in helping with part of the EU Presidency, bringing young people to speak on the area of social media and AI. You build it into your system. The Departments of children and education are doing it, and they have participation units now. It really strengthens the ideas and the way things are done. That needs to be done in the Departments of agriculture, housing, Finance and public expenditure. You would change the way things are done when you ask the children and young people. Again, they will not ask for more money. They will say, “Spend it better”, and they will give ideas. The idea that they are valued and, as Ms Pinto has said, the culture where every Department is thinking this way means that a Department will not look odd for saying that it wants to do something because the children told it to do so but because, legislatively, the children have said it needs to look at it. Children know they cannot get everything but at least they know when they are listened to. We explain to them that we can do something but it might be three or four years before they get the other piece, and they will accept that. It would be great to see that.

Thank you.

I thank Dr. Muldoon for joining us. Others have already asked a number of the questions I was going to ask. The 1,800 complaints have been mainly about children’s public services, whether education, health services or Tusla complaints. Of those, 31% related to special needs education, such as a lack of spaces or delays in assessment, services and therapies that are available for those with special needs. What has the ombudsman done to address these issues with the various Departments? We all know what the Departments need to do, but how has he tried to address with them the 31% of complaints that relate to special needs education?

We are constantly engaging with the Department. On individual complaints, we deal with them over time. We got a lot of quick wins in that 1,800. Often it is just a case of poor communication or a lack of awareness of the impact. We engage with schools immediately and quickly. Probably 75% of our cases are resolved in the first six weeks. That is how we want it; local procedures with quick, rapid solutions are the way forward.

With the more complicated ones, we will engage. We are constantly engaging with the Department of education and looking at things like the access to services. I spoke earlier about education planning for buildings and places for children. We engage with the NCSE, the Department of education and the NCCA in regard to curriculum. Wherever we need to go, we go, and we have been doing that for many years. As the Senator will see from our annual reports over the years, the number of complaints with regard to education is actually coming down. From our point of view, the Department is probably left with more complicated and more serious complaints coming in at this point. It is getting better, however, and I think part of that is because it has started to listen to children and it has a participation unit. We are constantly on its back and are constantly pushing to improve things in all areas of the education system in children’s lives. It is the same with Tusla and the Department of Health. Those are the top three bodies for issues.

On special emergency arrangements, earlier this year, the ombudsman called the care crisis in Tusla stomach-churning. This relates to the special emergency arrangements that are made for children in care. He also flagged the millions of euro that have been funnelled to private and unregulated profit-making entities in the provision of these emergency arrangements. Many of these places had unqualified staff, resulting in children being locked in rooms, exposed to drugs and exploitation and sometimes grooming.

I think we all received a letter during the week from the Children’s Rights Alliance highlighting that the contract for children seeking international protection in this country was given to AllPro Services. It was highlighting that this particular company had no-----

Senator Keogan, sorry. The agenda item this morning is consideration of incorporating the UNCRC into Irish law.

This is something the ombudsman might be able to speak on because, obviously, it does affect children who are coming into this country and seeking international protection. Would he have any concerns that a contract in relation to such a vulnerable group of children coming to this country has been awarded to a company that has no experience whatsoever in dealing with such children?

Just to remind the Senator, we cannot name a company that is not represented here. I will not be asking the ombudsman to answer that.

All right, so Dr. Muldoon will not answer that question. If he is not going to answer it, then I have no more questions.

Does the Senator want to ask around special emergency arrangements and how the incorporation of the UNCRC might impact them?

That is a question but if the Government is clearly giving contracts to people who have absolutely no experience of special care arrangements for children, what is the point in asking that question?

Special emergency arrangements are not on the agenda.

Maybe Dr. Muldoon will give some indication of his views on these unregulated profit-makers that are coming into this sector and do not have the best interests of the child at heart. As he has pointed out before, many of the people working in these facilities are unqualified. Does he have any concerns about that when it comes to children who have been separated through international protection and unaccompanied minors who arrive into this country?

If Dr. Muldoon could answer with reference to the agenda item, that would be helpful.

We have been on record for a long time saying the use of private enterprise is not necessarily the way forward. It should always be under the control of the Government. There is also a commitment in Tusla from 2021 to reduce the reliance on private providers. Often the private service will choose the easiest child to work with and that makes it much more difficult. Again, you are looking at the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child guiding you and making no legislation or policy decision that is contrary to the rights of the child. That is the sort of guidance and change of culture that would make a difference through a lot of this decision-making.

I will bring it back to the finance side of things. The choice to force Tusla to go down the road of hiring private services because that does not add to the State’s payroll is short-termism and causes awful problems. We can see from abroad, from England, that when private companies took over 70% of the services for children in care, it led to close to a monopoly. They were able to charge whatever they wanted, they did not necessarily provide the best services and they cherry-picked who they worked with. That, in turn, led to a collapse in the system. In England, they re-examined that and have changed the system since then. We can see from Scotland that they are trying to move away from that private market-led scenario by 2030. We need to be doing the same thing. With the UN convention incorporated in law, that would be much less likely to happen than it is now.

Okay. I thank Dr. Muldoon.

Thank you. I call Deputy Ennis.

I thank the witnesses for coming in to see us and for all their work with our young people, which is so important.

In his opening statement, Dr. Muldoon noted that budgets are about choices and that our budgets are not currently child centred. He specifically referred to the €38 million spent on private emergency arrangements. How would the incorporation of the convention affect areas already in crisis such as housing? In Dublin 1 - I do not think there is anywhere more pertinent – the rights of children are most obviously under attack. We have spoken about the local authorities. In Dublin 1 alone, there are 1,200 children living in emergency accommodation. We all know what comes with that, such as a lack of green space or play space and even a lack of space to just do homework. We know the failures here. How would incorporation shape decisions like that for the local authority?

Again, we know what is needed there is a multifaceted approach. We know that because it was a multifaceted mistake from our local authority, the State, the HSE and the services. I know from working with young people that children's involvement in that is crucial. Children who do have will tell you what they want and children who do not have will tell you what they need. That is obviously crucial for decisions going forward.

If we look at the examples from Scotland, it was said they are starting to see cultural change over there, which we know is not easy and takes time before we can even chalk that up or see it and then collect data. Are there any examples emerging from Scotland of the impact that incorporation has on children there? It is a short period of time we are dealing with, but are there any examples we can go on?

In the witnesses’ view, what are the immediate steps we should be taking to put Ireland on a pathway towards a full and direct incorporation of the UNCRC?

I thank the Deputy. I congratulate him and welcome him to the committee. From our point of view, there is a whole range of stuff, but I will let my colleague Dr. Keilthy talk about it.

I will take the Deputy’s question about housing and some of the examples. Ms Pinto will then come in on the steps we need to take.

In relation to housing, this is a really important area. We now are at the point where the Department is developing a new child and family homelessness strategy, which is really positive, but we had to wait a very long time for that to happen. If we had incorporation, that would have been at the outset of when we began to see the rise in homelessness starting to affect children and young people. We would have been carrying out child rights impact assessments and ensuring there were adequate supports to prevent children from entering homelessness in the first place. Again, that prevention piece is so important. It would also have empowered local authorities to consider children's rights in terms of how they provide services and do their work.

Scotland has produced lots of guidance and training for local authorities specifically in this whole area that gives them the tools they need to ensure that the planning of services, whether play, recreation or housing, is children's rights centred, and that they have all the support at their disposal to do that effectively. If we had incorporation, we would see much greater action from an early point in Dublin 1 where there is, as the Deputy said, a huge concentration of child and family homelessness, and a concerted effort at a local level because it is not just about national policy. It trickles down to our local government as well and has a real effect on communities.

I will speak about a specific example in Scotland that Dr. Muldoon mentioned as well. It concerns the care law there. I encourage the committee to look at what is included in that piece of legislation. Before that was published, legislators had to ensure it was compliant with the UNCRC. That is why Scotland has such strong protections and a really strong framework that is centred on the experiences of people with care experience. We have our childcare Bill, a review of which will come to the committee shortly. There are obviously many welcome measures in that, but it does not go nearly as far as we need in relation to issues like independent advocacy and supports for foster and kinship carers. It just makes the policymaking process and the legal process so much stronger from the outset. That then follows through. We are starting to see that come to fruition in Scotland. I know there will be more examples as the Government rolls it out.

I will add to what my colleague, Dr. Keilthy, said. When we talk about full and direct incorporation, the beauty of it is that it looks at the child holistically. What direct incorporation means is that the legal text of the convention would be written directly into Irish law. All rights that are covered by the convention - civil, political, economic, social and cultural - are included. Full means the entire convention; all the rights in the convention are in the law and the entire convention becomes part of the domestic legal system. That is the beauty of it.

When we talk about issues such as health, housing, education, and economic, social and cultural rights, Article 4 of the convention reflects a realistic acceptance that there can be a lack of resources, be they financial or otherwise, and this can hamper the full implementation of those rights. However, it introduces the concept of progressive realisation, which means that such rights can and should be implemented in a progressive way. There is always an obligation on the State to invest in and implement those rights to the maximum extent of its available resources. This needs to be taken into account. It is extremely important.

When it comes to the steps in relation to putting Ireland on a pathway to incorporation, it would be great if possible, as an initial step, to have that review published because it would set the ground, identify the gaps and we can take it from there. It is an absolutely necessary step for us to move forward and then also prepare the legislative framework for it. I am sorry, I am going over the time.

We can come back in the second round. In private session, the committee can chat and we can send a letter to seek an update on the report, if the committee agrees to that.

I thank the witnesses very much for being here today. When was this implemented in Scotland?

It was implemented in 2024.

I am sorry if this has been asked already, but are there practical examples of how it has benefited children in Scotland already? The Chair has done a lot of work on this and speaks very highly of the impact on children, but for the sake of my constituents in Dublin West, I ask the witnesses to give examples of how this could improve their lives, particularly around the area of childcare. We have obviously just published the report on child poverty. Would this have an impact, for example, on making sure early childhood care and education, ECCE, was on a statutory basis and every child would have an entitlement to a place? It is about things like that. I would like to get an understanding of the step-change it would bring.

I am happy to answer that. In relation to Scotland, the law was passed in July 2024. A lot of the groundwork has been that cultural shift and changing how the policymaking process actually works. There are good examples around children being consulted more in terms of policies and, as I mentioned, how it has strengthened the legal process and legislative frameworks. It is a little bit too early to point to very clear examples of the impact on children's outcomes and well-being, but that is obviously something that is evolving all of the time.

The Deputy mentioned childcare. Ireland is unusual in terms of the private provision of childcare. Again, incorporation would give a stronger basis in relation to children's access to early years care and education that is available, accessible and supports their well-being. That is an area where there would be an impact. These things take time but it is that cultural shift. Some cases have been taken in Scotland, for example, around mental health and the use of restraint in mental health facilities, and being able to reference the Act and do that through the courts as well.

On an older situation, Norway incorporated the UNCRC in 2003. This goes to Deputy Ennis's point too. Norway had no mention of children within its housing and planning act and then it changed it such that all lawmakers need to have due regard to the environment in which children and youth grew up and that became part of planning permission and planning development. Now, within Norway's planning laws, when local authorities build local amenities such as playgrounds or consider urban planning, they have guidelines and a legal requirement to consider children within that planning and those playgrounds. They also have access for all children, so children with disabilities, whatever the type, will have access to those areas. Playgrounds are situated in locations that are accessible. Dublin 1 and Dublin 8 are very poorly served in that regard. It is not just a green field; it has to be considered as part of it. You are looking at a different way of spending your resources. We have seen it time and again. Just looking around, we are building many new apartment blocks without anything around them, or we are putting them in where there is already limited spaces. We are not thinking long ahead. We will see the same issues repeated, where children are hanging around saying they have nothing to do, which can be troublesome for people. Again, that is from Norway, so it is 20 years ahead of us. Can you imagine the new developments that have been created as a result of that? That is the sort of forward planning and change in culture that help.

For example, when our local authorities come around to county development plans, there would be a statutory requirement on them to think about urban planning and building spaces and environments that not only are suitable for children but also naturally lend to the protection and safeguarding of children.

Absolutely, yes. The example I gave earlier was where the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, already has a legal obligation with regard to an environmental impact of his legislation on housing. His Department spent six weeks looking at the environmental impact of the new concept of beds in sheds. Every local authority, with incorporation, will have to spend time looking at the impact on children's rights of its planning. If you are going to look at that, you automatically say, "We need to put in something here for children, we need to make sure it is accessible and available, we need to ensure that it is close and we need to be sure that the children's rights are being protected in all ways." It is the same with how they would think about schools or crèches. At the moment we have a legal obligation to put in a crèche and we find that people are putting in crèches that are not suitable. They build them and then Tusla comes along and says, "That is not suitable for a crèche." That should have happened once; it should never continue to happen. Somebody will be able to come back and sue or go to court to get restitution with regard to those sorts of situations.

We have a provision now in legislation whereby if, from an enterprise perspective, something is being introduced that will impact small businesses, a test has to be done. Do we have something like that for children or would that-----

That is the idea.

That would be provided. I have only 15 seconds left, but just to say, the only provision in planning in relation to childcare is the guidelines that for every 75 houses, there should be spaces for 20 children. That is it. It does not get into the nature of that kind of provision and it is a patchwork in terms of the way many local authorities approach that. Some local authorities, like Dublin, are better at approaching it whereas others just feel it is not their responsibility to go beyond that and they just do the bare minimum. This is a very useful intervention, and if I had-----

That is the concept whereby they would have to make a choice but they would be legally obliged to consider the choice they made with regard to children with those budgets and that planning. That would be a huge change.

It would also be child centric, not planning centric.

I am always very interested in that as well, given that I am from an urban area in a rural setting where 75 units are rarely built together, so you do not get those crèches built.

In any case, I was struck by the sentence:

Decisions continue to be made with little or no consideration of the rights and needs of children, especially when it comes to investing in services that support them.

Dr. Muldoon outlined the really good example of the environmental impact assessment, and Deputy Currie referred to the SME test. Can he give some examples of where this went wrong, that is, where no consideration was made for children? I know we have talked about SEAs. It is quite a big statement to say, "Decisions continue to be made with little or no consideration" of this, so I would like to understand more what kinds of decisions were made.

I will point out even the most recent suggestion from the Departments of public expenditure and finance that other Departments have to pay for the shortfall in education. That concept is not in the best interests of children because education is a constitutional right and the increase in spending is generally around poor planning for special educational needs. What is being said there is that we will pit all 16 other Departments against the Department of education because it provided for children with special educational needs, or whatever other reason there was for a shortfall. That is not in the best interests of children. The question that has to be asked is, "How do we engage as a Government in this and make sure that we are all thinking about children's rights all the time?" Then the budgets are slightly different and they are looked at differently. If we were to change the model to multi-annual budgets for anything to do with children, that would change the flow of money and would change the impact positively for people.

The concept that you pit people against one another over money because we have a target to have a certain balance at 2030 is not in the best interests of children. It is using the wrong metrics to see whether we have been successful as a nation or not. That is a very broad thing, but you can imagine how restrictive that makes the Department of education now and how anti-the Department of education others will become. That is not in the best interests of our children and it is across our education system. Someone looking for a special education classroom in Cork will say, "Maybe I will not do that; I will get hammered if I do", whereas the constitutional right of the child to have that is clear and unambiguous but not protected in our legislation. Does that-----

It does, yes. It is a good example. It is a bold statement so I wanted to get some good examples.

On a similar thread, if we look at housing, education and disability - all the silos Dr. Keilthy mentioned, if we want to refer to them as that - where is the absence of the full and direct incorporation of the UNCRC having the biggest impact? Is there a particular area that is crying out most for this?

We are in the middle of research on young lives at risk. It is those children on the edges and margins of society who would have previously ended up in foster care, perhaps special care or high-support care - those sorts of areas. We are looking at that. Our margins are growing. As regards children on the margins, we know deprivation and poverty are growing, so those children and those families are not being supported in the way they should be. Dr. Keilthy may wish to go into that a little further.

That is a really good example. Again, where incorporation could help is that cross-departmental approach to it because these are young people who may have fallen through the cracks of different supports and services. They may be in touch with mental health services, addiction services or homelessness services or they may be in touch with the criminal justice system, but at the moment we do not have an overarching kind of approach to addressing their needs and investing earlier in prevention and in their supports. We hope to publish this report towards the end of the year. It will include a consultation with these young people as well. That is a good example of where incorporation would make a difference in terms of joining up the dots, thinking about services. Obviously, this is part of how the Departments of education and children do their work, but then it is other Departments where children are not their direct mandate that may not think of them immediately. I think that is what incorporation would do.

To add to that, part of the reason we did this is that it is the family support too that is not necessarily tied up together. People are not thinking about that. As regards the support for the unemployed father or the addicted mother, they are adult services, so we have to tie them up to this.

One of the other things we did was to try to get this research done through the Departments, but they would not take it on, so we are taking it on now because we are seen as an honest broker and a neutral space. We are able to talk to the different Departments and hear what is going on. That is probation, justice, the Garda, social workers, home care, people in deprived areas who are supporting youth workers - all those areas. We are bringing that all together to try to create a sort of framework that could be useful that we will then hand over to the State and say, "Please, try to do better for our children."

Again, the incorporation would just make that so much stronger and that co-operation and engagement across services and Departments would be much smoother because it would be compulsory.

I have one last question. Norway is 20 years ahead of us and Scotland is a couple of years ahead of us, and we have a report that the committee may seek an update on. What learnings could we make from Norway and Scotland? Dr. Keilthy gave the example of Scotland addressing compliance as an afterthought. If we are looking at next steps, is there anything else that, say, Norway may have, or should have, done differently, or any other examples from Scotland, given that they are ahead of us on this journey?

The main suggestion they made to us was to make sure we had that report, that gap analysis. That was the main one mentioned when we talked to different colleagues. Again, it is ongoing training. This is a change of mindset and a change of skills for a lot of public servants. It is that idea that we need to allow them time to come forward with that and to get involved in that. You get immediate pushback. In Scotland, there was immediate pushback that this would not necessarily affect a lot of the legal cases, but it has been clarified that this is across all legal cases as well. Those sort of clarities start to come very quickly but if there is a gap analysis, that clarity is there before you even start.

I am trying to think whether there is anything else from Norway or Scotland that we could put out there.

After incorporation it is an ongoing piece of work. There is the work that has to happen after we have the legislation as well, and it is important to acknowledge that we are aware of that.

The debate has been very broad in terms of the issues and areas such legislation would affect and impact on. The witnesses noted that undertaking an environmental assessment of legislation takes a six-month period, within which there might be some period of public consultation. I know they are not legislators, but have they considered the nature of the legislation that would be required and how it might be drafted? How do they foresee it progressing through the legislative process?

I will start and Ms Pinto might come in as well. That is a really important part of the puzzle and we are just looking now at what that legislative framework would look like. We can obviously look to Scotland and its law. We can also look to Norway in relation to its law. It is important that we have a framework to start that discussion and then it is about how we can get to the floor of the Oireachtas. Obviously, lots of legal questions will have to be run through. As Dr. Muldoon pointed out, Ireland is so lucky that we have some of the best children's rights experts in the world, who can assist with that. There will be questions around the Constitution but we have consulted constitutional experts, who do not think there will be any challenges with that. We have already had the children's rights referendum and we have also ratified, and in that sense have given endorsement to, the convention itself. It will take time to get the legal framework to have those discussions and we acknowledge that this process will take a while to get right. As I said, having that compliance review is also a huge benefit to the Irish case.

I will just add that when we talk about legislation, what we really want to see is the entire text of the convention in domestic legislation. We want the rights there - the full entirety of the convention. We do have the constitutional provision. What the Government has been doing so far is partially incorporating the convention at a constitutional level, at a legislative legal and also at a policy level, but that leads to differential treatment of children depending on which area of life we are talking about. For example, it was a significant development to have a constitutional protection of children's rights inserted into the Constitution. However, Article 42A does not go far enough when it comes to incorporation because it is limited to certain areas of law. It does not meet the convention standards because it confines the application of the best interests of the child and respect for the views of the child to certain specific and selective areas like adoption, guardianship, custody or access. It stops short of making it mandatory in areas like justice, healthcare and immigration. Having said that, Article 42A(1) is an important provision that we should distinguish from the rest of that article. It is an overarching provision that mandates legislative action. It "recognises and affirms the natural and imprescriptible rights of all children" and requires the State to "protect and vindicate those rights" by its laws. A law that fully and directly incorporates the UNCRC into national law will do just that. We have a solid constitutional provision that can support direct and full incorporation. We have it there. We just need the political will to do it, basically.

To add to that, one of the big things that happened in Scotland is that they got cross-party agreement early on. That is why we are delighted to have this opportunity to be here in this committee so we can start to create that cross-party agreement if we can. If we get consensus that this needs to happen, then we can discuss how it happens. Obviously, that will take time as well but that is where we are hoping to move towards.

I am tight on time so I will follow on from that and ask how the witnesses judge the political will. What has been the response from the Department?

Last year, I met An Taoiseach and eight Ministers and I led every meeting with the incorporation. Nobody was necessarily against it after we had a discussion but the question was always, "Listen, we're looking for a gap analysis. We have a gap analysis coming. We'll see what comes out of that and then we'll discuss it further." It was kicked to touch for a little while. We are hopeful that there is a move afoot to try to do this. It is about real leadership. It will need international leadership at this level to do this. I do not think it will be a seismic change when we get to the other side of it. It is not going to break the bank and it is not going to change the world completely, but over five or ten years it will totally change the system in a way that is always for the better and is probably more efficient.

When was the last time there was such a significant move by the Government?

What do we compare it to? One of the arguments we get from Departments is that we have never done this before, that they do not do it this way and that they do it some other way. I would suggest nobody had ever banned cigarettes before and we led the world on that. We can do the same thing here. I do not think it is anywhere near as seismic as that as regards what will happen around the world, but if we show examples here at a time when the UN convention is not necessarily protected in other places, we will again become an attractive country that says it is rights led. We are trying to show ourselves to get onto the United Nations Human Rights Council next year. This would be a huge message going forward to say, "Listen, we stand here and we walk the walk as well as talk the talk."

I thank the witnesses.

Given that he is sitting beside me, I probably should not have missed out on welcoming Deputy Ennis to the children's committee, but I have now got that out of the way. It is shameful but I just did not really care enough.

I do not think there is anyone who is not sold on the idea of incorporating the UNCRC. Am I right in saying we are basically talking about the complete text being put into the legislation?

Yes.

Basically, it is almost ready to go apart from the fact the Government needs to show it to the Attorney General and whoever else. Are we ready to go on this?

Yes.

It is just a matter of getting agreement.

Obviously, careful thought needs to be put into how it will be organised and drafted but the text of the convention is the law.

The substance, yes.

It is what would become law. In countries like Sweden, for example, an argument was put forward that the rights and the conditions are too broad. The reality is that Scotland, for example, has incorporated not just the text of the convention but also the general comments of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which are authoritative interpretations of the articles of the convention, as well as the jurisprudence of the committee and the concluding observations. Any recommendations the committee has made in relation to different thematic areas would also be incorporated, because, at the end of the day, what that does is it guides and helps interpreting the articles of the convention. That would be a way of counter-arguing against the broadness of the scope of the convention.

Essentially what it would mean is that it would also be a living document that way because it would mean that next year and the year after, when the UN committee says something, it is also related to this Bill. In Scotland the Bill is only 15 pages long or something like that. It is just about ensuring we get the right phraseology and the legal terminology to make it work.

That is it but basically it is having the text and then having constant updates. It is about ensuring we have the necessary checks and balances in place to ensure children have the rights they require across the board. Dr. Muldoon spoke about the fact that there are partial rights but they only relate to very specific areas around, say, childcare.

Correct.

They are probably not doing what even they are meant to do at this point in time.

Yes, there would be question marks. People would question as to whether it has even been implemented as well as we would have liked within that system.

It would be a really worthwhile move for us to introduce this. It shows we have the interest in tackling the issues. It will only matter, however, if we have the proper level of enforcement. It is back to the need to have planning take this into account. As Dr. Muldoon says, it is the cultural shift.

The enforcement then comes from the fact that somebody can challenge in the courts that something was not done.

I get it. It is the sword of Damocles.

I remind the committee that the Joint Committee on Arts, Media, Culture, Communications and Sport has recommended this as well because it could see the value of this in protecting children in the online space. There is a momentum, I hope, building in this direction.

We should play our part in this. It makes absolute sense because we could talk around in circles at this committee and many others about the failures of the system but, as I said, half of that problem is that nobody is looking at the issue from the point of view of the child and asking how best to treat that child and what resources are needed. Even prior to this, when we are talking about the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2025, how do we proof something from the UNCRC before we have it implemented in law?

We do that all the time.

That is what we try to do in our office but in this case there would be an obligation to ensure compliance.

I agree 100%. We all attempt to do that and catch those pieces but it is just making sure.

I thank members for the welcome and well wishes. I will not forgive anyone who did not wish me well.

John Connolly, just in case.

It is chalked up. We speak about this incorporation potentially shaping better communication, engagement and planning across the services and our local authorities. We know this is crucially important in areas like Dublin 1 where we have over 10% of the country's homeless and emergency accommodation population as well as on over-concentration of services in the one area. What that brings is a high number of children living in those circumstances and very close to people with complex needs. As regards the incorporation and implementation of the UNCRC, have there been any engagements or planning going forward? What are the conversations around the redistribution of services, first of all, especially around our young people? Do we have any examples from our European counterparts, whether that be Scotland here and now or Norway, around what this planning of services looks like for our young people, especially in local authorities and HSE-style services in other countries?

I do not think we have that as yet but we are in ongoing engagement with Norway, Sweden and Scotland. Our formal launch will be at the end of this month. We will try to move things forward. That is when we will start to get chatting with them about those frameworks and the physical, real changes that have happened and how they have reimagined systems. Again, my guess is that Norway and Sweden probably were not as far away from a good system as we might be. We will certainly start to put that into play, start asking those questions and get real examples that we can bring to the committee in the future. I am sorry that we do not have them at this time.

We are happy to share the guidance that has come from Scotland, particularly in relation to local authorities, so the committee can see what that would look like. We can also share some of the statutory guidance that it has put in place as well. Maybe that will help in terms of what the practical effect of this will be.

It is also important to say that the Department of children has been doing what we call indirect incorporation. It has been creating the enabling environment for the implementation of the UNCRC. It is piloting child rights impact assessments already. It is doing training with public and civil servants on children's rights. That work is already in train and incorporation would just mainstream that activity across Government Departments, public bodies and local authorities.

It would be great to have that, or at least have some idea of it, when we are shaping county development plans or heading towards a new city development plan. I say city development plan for Dublin City Council because that is where we are seeing a lot of the problems caused by bad planning. If the north inner city or Dublin Central tell us anything, it is that there is a history of bad planning, especially around our young people.

Are the witnesses aware of any organisation in Ireland that has been against the full and direct implementation of the UNCRC?

Among the people we have engaged with so far, there has not been any dissent. There are always questions about whether we should continue with indirect incorporation or whether we go directly. For me, this is the big-bang approach as opposed to slow progression. My argument has always been that we have tried slow progression for 33 years and it is not getting us there. I do not think this can make matters worse but I do think it can definitely make things better. There is always a discussion and a tension between those things but I do not think we have come across anyone who dissents up to this point. I am sure they are out there. We know our colleagues in Northern Ireland are trying the same thing and they would have had different sectoral meetings with different people, whether through the faith system, education or parents. We have not started those conversations yet. We expect there will be push-back in certain places but we have not met it yet.

We will be resuming our discussion of this topic in the autumn, so we might come across those conversations then. I attended the fantastic event last October. It was such a privilege to listen to the voices of the children. So far, this committee has had a number of engagements on two topics with children. For all members of the committee, those are probably the most poignant meetings. They stand out, especially the meeting we had in closed session with children on the issues of child poverty and deprivation. It was impressive how the children were able to use their own voices to explain some of the things that had been described in a policy way.

One that stands out to me is the conversation on period products. Many schools have now brought period products into the bathrooms. One child said they kept being taken, so now the teachers have the period products and the students have to go and ask them. To my mind, they are being taken because people are afraid there is not going to be a constant supply. I am 40 years of age, and I certainly do not want to go and ask somebody for period products, although if I have to I will. I can only imagine the embarrassment for a 14- or 15-year-old. To hear that directly from the children is powerful. It is coming into more Departments and all of the committees now have that responsibility. That would be a huge piece.

I am digressing from my question. That was a great event. What other steps has the office taken to raise awareness of its goal of getting us to incorporate the UNCRC in a full and direct way? What other events are planned?

Our youth advisory panel has been leading the way on this for us. It is very important for children and young people that we are moving towards incorporation and that we have a strong mandate from children and young people. They are part of our campaign planning. Our participation and rights education team also bring this into the discussion any time they are speaking and meeting with young people to get that insight and get their views. It is a constant process. We will continue to work with children and young people. In Scotland, it was children and young people who led this. It will be the same here for us. We have our launch at the end of this month. We then have a series of engagements over the next couple of months and into next year as well.

What is the launch?

It is the launch of our campaign.

Will we have an opportunity to discuss the office’s annual report following its publication? Can that be organised?

We have not been with the committee since then.

Will we have an opportunity for a formal review of the annual report and to discuss it with the office?

Once we resume after the recess and look at our work programme, we can put that in if it is a priority of the full committee. Several pieces of legislation will be coming to us. Perhaps it might be nice to invite the witnesses to the audiovisual room, where we could have a discussion with TDs. It is something that we can discuss again in private session.

I have one more question.

The Deputy never misses an opportunity. We will put three minutes on the clock.

In fairness, a really good sales pitch was done in relation to the UNCRC. Comhghairdeas as sin. What engagement has there been at a governmental level? How open has the office found the Minister to be with regard to introducing this? It is about making sure it is a priority. We can all have an interest in doing a lot of things, but it can be a long time before they happen.

As I said, we started these conversations last year with the Taoiseach and then with all the other Ministers I met. Our next round will be with the leaders of the different parties to try to push this forward. We will see where we are after that.

There has been no opposition, but nobody said, “Get that to me and we are ready to hit the ground.”

At that stage, it was the concept we were highlighting, but we are now much more in line with where we want to go. Hopefully, we will have a better conversation with the leaders of each of the parties over the next while.

That is it. The office will provide guidance on the material. The material in Scotland is nearly broken down into guidance for every sector.

The legislation is short and sweet, but the idea is that each Department will take a look at it and ask where children's rights fit into this. I would guess that is what will happen. We will start looking at that to see how it would actually work in practice.

That would be really useful as a selling point. This is all very positive. Look how decent I am - I am giving one and a half minutes back.

I think the Deputy is really trying to find questions. He hates to see time left. Given that we have only one set of witnesses this morning, that is why we have managed to have time left over and no more questions to ask. The witnesses answered them all in great depth. I look forward to continuing the conversation on this very important topic in the autumn.