We have been talking about our children almost as long as I am an adult or slightly less. To my knowledge the Care memorandum in 1968 initiated debate on the problems of our children, particularly about our deprived, oppressed or underprivileged children depending on which terminology one chooses to use. We had the Kennedy Report in 1971, the Care Report on Children and the Constitution in 1977 and Hope, the voluntary organisation which deals with homeless children, produced more. The Government response commenced in 1974 when the task force on child care services was set up. It took seven years to produce a report, which must be close to a record for even a Government commission. It does not reflect well any passion in our commitment to the welfare of our children. The problem has come and gone, surfaced and disappeared on and off, and it resurfaced recently again with the position of eight travellers' children in Cork. We had great concern about them, the fact that there was nowhere to put them and nowhere to keep them in spite of the fact that much of this work has been done, much has been promised, much has been held up and much has been waited for. We focused in on the fact then that they were sniffing glue, and I should like to endorse the opinion of a member of the senior medical staff of the Southern Health Board that glue sniffing is probably the least of their problems.
The fundamental problem is that they were homeless and that in spite of much promising, in spite of much undertaking and goodwill nothing so far has been done. It is because nothing has been done that various trains of events have followed from the delay and lack of urgency in this area. According to the figures supplied to me — indeed, I would welcome it if the Minister had authoritative figures on these problems — there are probably around 50 or so totally homeless children living in the Dublin inner city area. I will talk in a moment about why this problem has arisen and link it to the unnecessary delay, in my view, in providing any sort of services for them. It is not a huge number but it is a pathetic problem that we should leave one of our children on the street. The small scale of the problem has got nothing to do with the gravity of it, that we should leave our children on the streets is obviously terrible.
The problem is linked largely to the problem of travelling people and the conditions in which travellers are living in the Dublin urban area in particular. Indeed, the children who came to the surface, or came to light, in Cork had strong Dublin connections. The reason why the delay is so critical is that in recent times there has been a collapse in what was heretofore a very rigid family structure in the travelling community. I say this without any disrespect to the travelling people. In the past family discipline was very tight, family unity was very strong and, therefore, children did not roam abroad unprotected, unsupported and unaided. It is estimated that there are somewhere about 60 travellers' families with serious psychiatric and alcoholic problems in Dublin city. Those are estimates that have been supplied to me and I cannot vouch for their authenticity but I do not think we are going to get into an argument about numbers — that is not the problem.
There has been a growth in this problem. The number of children who are homeless has got worse because of the collapse in the family unit. I have heard horrific stories about 14-year-old girls giving birth to babies in the back seats of abandoned cars, as testified to me by one individual. I hope he is wrong. The frightening thing is that we do not need new legislation to do something about this problem. That is why I am critical again of the delay. It did not need legislation, indeed, it did not even need the Task Force. The powers are there under the 1908 Children's Act which people like myself are often given to maligning. The powers are there under that Act because it makes it obligatory on the police to intervene where a child is at risk and bring a child to a place of safety. That is not a discretion. I understand that is an obligation on the police. Therefore, that is the first stage, that is the protection. Obviously, the problem is what we do with them then. I understand it is possible to have a fit persons order made under which a child is put into the care of an individual. My authority on that is, again, the Task Force Report which states that under certain sections of the Children's Act, 1908 a child may be committed to the care of a fit person for his own protection.
The legislation is there but it is not being implemented. This legislation, I understand, is often used against children or to assist or support children of the settled community, but there are widespread allegations to my knowledge that it is avoided if at all possible for the support of the children of the travelling community. The reason I have been given is that there are too many children from the travelling community to be catered for within the existing institutions. Hence the need and the problem with the delay. There is also the reason that travelling children are alleged to be rather difficult and awkward to deal with. Consequently, the solution is to avoid at all costs using this legislation. The consequences, of course, are that we have children living on the streets in a country which currently attaches great importance to the sanctity of human life. Children do not have votes and, apparently, they are not that close to the centre of our consciousness.
There are procedures which could be used. There are procedures used under the amended Children's Act in the United Kingdom whereby any child who comes to the attention of police is brought to a place of safety, assessed and whatever is deemed to be necessary for the child is done. It is the least we can do for our children. The suggestion sometimes put forward that travellers' children are too numerous, too awkward or too difficult to deal with hardly deserves more than passing notice. Surely those of our children who are the most difficult, the most problematic come from the most scandalous backgrounds are those whom the existing legislation should be used on, not to mention further legislation to defend children living in circumstances which are not ideal for bringing up children, and it is not good enough for us to wash our hands clean.
It has been mentioned to me that what are called serviced sites usually incorporate a hard surface and a single tap while an unserviced site is the side of the road. Neither circumstance is exactly ideal for bringing up children, but surely it is not good enough for us to wash our hands and say we will not use even the existing legislation, not to mention bringing in new legislation, to defend children just because they are too numerous or too difficult. The Task Force also made recommendations which suggest that when it is clear that parents are not willing to take responsibility for their children there must be intervention. I am aware that there is a school of thought of a minimum intervention theory. That is all very well but if a child has been abandoned, effectively, by its parents, who is to intervene to defend that child but ourselves and who is to look after him but ourselves?
I do not want to make a political football out of our children's problems. I have deliberately refrained from any emotional language. It is not particularly the fault of this Minister or this Government that the proper custodial facilities for difficult children, for children with problems, for children with no homes, for children who need support, counselling and advice and a substitute for the family that no longer wants them, are not there. That is not a problem that should become a political football. I would imagine it is a problem on which there is a consensus. I fail to understand the long delay and why, since I was a student in Dublin ten years ago until now, there are still children begging on O'Connell Bridge.
I do not believe that any constitutional, legal or financial problem, or any other problem, should stand in the way of our helping those children. It is wrong for a Christian society to claim that any reason, financial, administrative or, indeed, constitutional, can prevent us from implementing the sort of support services, protection, assistance or educational facilities that will, at least, show us to be attempting to deal with this difficult problem. I do not want for one second to minimise the problem. Dealing with difficult children is a highly specialised and demanding area of work. It is not an area which can be entered into easily, and many voluntary organisations, to my knowledge, have launched into this area and collapsed under the strain of the burden of dealing with difficult children. That, however, is not an excuse for delay and for doing nothing. It is simply an indication that we need serious thought, hard work and a programme of care, custody, support services, properly funded, properly maintained and adequate follow-up services to ensure that this problem will never happen again.
I am asking the Minister to give us an indication that something will be done quickly about the problem of homeless children, not the children who have been thrown out but the children who have abandoned home and who need to be dealt with in a different way from the children who are prepared to stay in alternative accommodation. That is why I deliberately used the word "custodial". We must intervene on these children's behalf. We cannot let the culture that has forced them into the lifestyles they have to dominate them if anything can be done to change it. I appeal to the Minister to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that the provisions of the 1908 Act can be met as widely as possible. If that is not satisfactory he should amend the legislation accordingly.
We are still waiting for a Children's Act. I look forward to its coming and reading it and I will be terribly upset if reasons of financial consideration, and the present state of the public finances, are to prevent us properly looking after our children, particularly those children who are the most deprived, largely the children of our travelling people. It is bad enough to be a child of a homeless travelling family, but to be without the sort of thing that passes for a home among travelling people is even more appalling. I raise the matter in the hope of adding to the sense of urgency I am sure the Minister has about the matter, and in the hope of highlighting it in public so that public opinion can be further stimulated. I have revived it because I believe it is the duty of public representatives and legislators to be concerned about all the vulnerable groups who often go unnoticed because they do not have the voice, the clout or the political consequences.
I repeat that the problem is not glue sniffing, as the problem ten years ago was not cider. The problem is, effectively, homeless children who have no family, no support and who are living by their wits. Consequently, they are difficult, awkward and quite hard to handle, but that is no excuse. We have an obligation to protect them from the consequences of their own environment, from the fact that they are deprived almost from birth. Shortly I hope we will not have the spectacle of when children such as these come before the courts all the State services can do is say: "We have one place for them in Dublin, but if they will not stay there there is nothing we can do." That is clearly unacceptable. There must be alternatives.
I await the Minister's response with interest. I believe there are numerous ways of dealing with the problem, with or without the co-operation of voluntary bodies, but, quite simply, the delay is unacceptable. We have been talking about this problem for ten years. Everybody has indicated that something must be done but nothing has been done. It should never happen again.
