Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 September 2013
32. Deputy Mick Wallace asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the facilities available to ensure the safety of children fleeing domestic violence; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38609/13]
View answer34. Deputy Mick Wallace asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will provide details of the Government's strategy for protecting children subject to domestic violence in view of recent calls by the European Committee of Social Rights and the Children's Alliance to ban corporal punishment and violence in the home; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38610/13]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 32 and 34 together.
At the outset, I would emphasise that the two matters raised by the Deputy, domestic violence and corporal punishment, are discrete issues.
Responsibility for the prevention of domestic violence rests with the Department of Justice and Equality. In so far as the HSE provides domestic violence services to victims, responsibility currently falls within the remit of the Department of Health and the HSE. Children, as individuals, do not require the services of domestic violence shelters; they accompany the parent who requires these on occasion. Unaccompanied children make use of alternative services, under the Child Care Act 1991, and would not be placed in a domestic violence shelter. The issue of domestic violence and associated services are included in the Bill providing for the establishment of the new Child and Family Agency (CFA) given the close relationship between domestic violence and child protection issues. In this regard, the task force report on the establishment of the CFA noted the need for a robust co-ordinating mechanism to continue the appropriate multi-organisational approach.
Ireland has no law or statute at present which specifically permits corporal punishment in the home setting. However, 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.’
In relation to corporal punishment within the home, a limited defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’ exists in common law, but successful high profile prosecutions have been taken by the State under section 246 where parents are deemed to have used excessive or unreasonable force in disciplining children.
My Department is currently engaged with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Attorney General's Office to respond formally to the European Committee of Social Rights of the Council of Europe (CoE) in respect of matters raised through the committee around the banning of corporal punishment in all settings.
