I thank the Chair and the committee for inviting us to discuss our 2022 annual report. I am joined by Ms Nuala Ward and Mr Páraic Walsh.
The Office of the Ombudsman for Children was established in 2004 by the Ombudsman for Children Act 2002. I am the second Ombudsman for Children. I was appointed in 2015 and reappointed for a second time in 2021. The Office of Ombudsman for Children is an independent statutory body with two main duties, namely, to deal with complaints made by, or on behalf of, children about the actions of public organisations, and to promote the rights and welfare of children under 18 living in Ireland. I will outline some of the work my office completed in 2022.
Our annual report, Falling Behind, was published on 16 May 2023. It is clear from our work that on many issues Ireland is starting to fall behind on children’s rights. There were 1,812 complaints made to my office in 2022. Education was the most complained about issue, with bullying, expulsion or suspension, and special education resources featuring in many of the complaints.
Falling Behind also features the stories of some of the children the Office of Ombudsman for Children worked with that year. This includes the story of Aisling, who told us that after making an allegation of bullying with a sexual dimension, the school made her feel responsible and that she was bullied by other students for reporting the abuse. The office took action and the school eventually apologised to Aisling, with the board of management updating its policies subsequently.
In 2022, much of our work focused on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s review of Ireland. This included producing a comprehensive alternative report for the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which highlighted areas of concern and made recommendations about actions the State needs to take to advance the implementation of children’s rights. We also worked with the our youth advisory panel to produce a children’s report, Pieces of Us, to the committee that consulted over 5,000 children. We then travelled to Geneva with members of our youth advisory panel in September 2022 to take part in a pre-sessional meeting with the committee and supported it to take part in the children’s meeting with the committee, in advance of that constructive dialogue with the State in January 2023.
The UN committee published its concluding observations in February 2023 and now, one year on from that publication, we have written to a number of Ministers to ask what their Departments are doing to implement the committee’s recommendations and ensure that the rights of children are respected and protected.
We engaged with a number of legislative and policy developments throughout 2022. These included the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2020; the review of the action plan on bullying; further developments around the general scheme of the mental health (amendment) Bill; the surrogacy-related provisions of the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill; and the Housing Commission's consultation on a right to housing in the Constitution. We appeared before other Oireachtas committees to discuss issues relating to mental health supports in schools and supports for children arriving from Ukraine. We also hosted a round-table discussion in December 2022 to consider possible interdepartmental and cross-service responses for teenagers at risk who have complex needs and are often placed by Tusla in unregulated accommodation.
In June 2022, we published Plan for Places, our report which focuses on forward planning of the provision of school places for children with special educational needs. This year, we will undertake work to examine what, if any, progress has been made to implement our recommendations arising from our report.
We decided to ensure that children’s thoughts and experiences of the pandemic were recorded so we launched our No Filter survey in February 2022 to hear directly from children and young people about life during this time. No Filter was an online survey featuring a wide range of questions based on common issues raised with the Office of the Ombudsman for Children and in the media. More than 1,300 children responded. The survey found that nearly half of the children surveyed felt their lives had changed significantly during the two-year pandemic; 74% experienced feelings of loneliness; and 83% of the children surveyed felt the pandemic had some negative impact on their learning. Falling Behind also details the office's direct engagement with children through our children’s rights workshops. As public health restrictions were being lifted in that year, we were delighted to welcome 1,100 children to the office, as well as meeting children on outreach visits to schools, child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, inpatient units and Oberstown Children Detention Campus.
In October 2022, we held events in Sligo and Limerick for children with disabilities. Beyond Limits is our unique festival-style event for children and young people with disabilities and their families to enjoy an inclusive and accessible day of speakers, performances and activities. Over 1,000 people attended these events. In December 2022, we published a report on the review of the Ombudsman for Children Act, which we commissioned independently. This report looks at how the role and remit of my office could be strengthened in a number of areas. We are working with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to progress the recommendations made in that report.
In 2022, we hosted Child Talks, which is an event we hold every year to mark World Children’s Day. It gives a platform to children to speak about issues that are important to them. Our 2022 event, as some Members might recall, was held in the Oireachtas Library in Leinster House with the theme, "If I were Taoiseach for the day". On that day, a wide range of topics were covered, including homelessness, education reform, autism supports, accessibility, rural transport, female empowerment, the Irish language and listening to children.
The Office of the Ombudsman for Children will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2024. We will market our anniversary throughout the year with various events and using our new commemorative strapline, "Tomorrow Starts with Us", which was developed following a consultation workshop with our youth advisory panel. In fact, we had our first celebration party two week ago attended by 100 children from Dublin 1. It was a fantastic start to the events.
This year is the final year of our current three-year strategic plan. We will continue to pursue our strategic priorities to promote children's rights to the highest attainable standard of mental health, ensure that children with disabilities in Ireland are seen, heard and counted and influence the education system of the future.
At the beginning of 2024 for the first time, we as an office submitted a report to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as part of its periodic examination of Ireland's record in relation to those rights. Some of the areas of concern that we raised included Government expenditure allocated to children, discrimination against children, domestic violence, access to education, mental health and disability services and child poverty.
I thank members again for the invitation to meet them today. My colleagues, Ms Nuala Ward and Mr. Paráic Walsh, and I are happy to take any questions.
