Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 December 2012
79. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if her attention has been drawn to the fact that Ireland's failure to ban corporal punishment has resulted in the State being in violation of Article 17 of the Revised European Social Charter; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [56780/12]
View answerAmongst the Conclusions on Ireland by the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) of the Council of Europe (CoE) in respect of Article 8 of the Revised European Social Charter is that the situation in Ireland is not in conformity with Article 17.1 of the Charter on the grounds that corporal punishment of children is not explicitly prohibited in the home.
It is important to note that Ireland has no law or statute which specifically permits corporal punishment in the home setting. On the contrary, Section 246 of the Children Act 2001 provides very clear legal deterrents to the use of excessive physical discipline within the home setting or otherwise, as follows:
Section 246.—(1 ) ‘It shall be an offence for any person who has the custody, charge or care of a child wilfully to assault, ill-treat, neglect, abandon or expose the child, or cause or procure or allow the child to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned or exposed, in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to the child's health or seriously to affect his or her well-being.’
The Children Act of 2001 also specifically prohibits physical punishment of children in all other settings such as schools, crèches, detention, public care settings etc
In relation to corporal punishment within the home, a limited defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’ exists in common law, but successful high profile prosecutions have also been taken by the State under section 246 where parents are deemed to have used excessive or unreasonable force in disciplining children.
There is a balance to be found between supporting parents in effective parenting, in particular, in use of non-violent forms of discipline, and the use of criminal law to impose criminal sanctions on parents who do not adhere to best practice in parenting. It is important to emphasise the considerable progress made in recent years in encouraging parents to use alternative non violent forms of discipline in the family setting. Recent official independent research undertaken by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs indicates that the practice of corporal punishment in the home setting is now relatively rare in Ireland. This research indicates that the vast majority of Irish parents never use corporal punishment as a means of disciplining children, opting instead for alternative means of discipline.
