Latest news with #NiallMuldoon
Irish Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Children's Ombudsman accuses Government of ‘letting down' child victims of domestic and sexual violence
The Children's Ombudsman has accused the Government of letting down child victims of domestic and sexual violence, and of disrespecting his office. Dr Niall Muldoon's remarks came after it refused to fund the monitoring of how the Government's landmark 'zero tolerance' domestic abuse strategy affects children. The role fell apart during a 'shameful' three-year row which left Dr Muldoon 'very angry'. The Department of Justice has confirmed the ombudsman will now have no role in monitoring the third national plan, which was the first to identify children as domestic abuse victims in their own right rather than witnesses. Before it was launched with much fanfare in 2022, the government asked Dr Muldoon to monitor whether the plan was upholding children's rights. READ MORE But Dr Muldoon's office spent the following three years unsuccessfully asking the Department of Justice and the Department of Children to fund the role his office was asked to do. Both departments claimed the other was responsible for funding the role. From 2022 on, Dr Muldoon sent a series of letters to then justice minister Helen McEntee, expressing increasing frustration. In the correspondence with the Department of Justice, released under Freedom of Information laws, Dr Muldoon said the ombudsman 'did not seek' the position, but government officials had been 'very eager for us to take [it] up'. In early 2023, Dr Muldoon asked for the role to be funded by January 2024, 'even if it is 18 months late'. By October 2023, Dr Muldoon expressed exasperation to have received 'not one single reply' in a year. Despite 'long, drawn-out engagement' between government officials, Dr Muldoon said, 'for the second budget in a row – your department has reneged on the promises given'. 'The actions of your department have been disrespectful of this office. However, my biggest concern and one that makes me very angry, is the impact this will have on the children who are being subjected to domestic or sexual and gender-based violence. These children have been let down. That is shameful behaviour,' Dr Muldoon said. He formally asked for any reference to the ombudsman to be removed from the strategy. 'The good name of this office has been used by your department to offer credibility and substance to the actions in relation to children that are outlined in the strategy, but I cannot let that continue,' he said. In January 2024, Dr Muldoon tried to secure funding again, arguing that 'while discussions continue over who pays for what, it is the children impacted by domestic, sexual and gender-based violence who will suffer'. In March of this year, Dr Muldoon wrote to newly-appointed Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan, seeking a meeting to talk about 'key areas', including the 'essential' funding of the role overseeing the national strategy. [ Better-off families 'sailing away from the have-nots', warns Ombudsman Opens in new window ] 'The strategy rightly identifies children and young people as both witnesses and victims/survivors, and their needs must be fully considered,' Dr Muldoon said. But the Department of Justice has now confirmed 'it was not possible to reach agreement on the precise parameters of this policy advice role and the resources that would be required'. The third national strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence (DSGBV) was due to run from 2022 to 2026. The last implementation plan for the strategy, which covers 2025 to 2026, was launched last month and includes no reference to the ombudsman. A spokesman for the department said 'further consideration will be given to how the needs to children are best met under the fourth national strategy on DSGBV, as it is developed'. A Department of Children spokeswoman said that, as the ombudsman was no longer mentioned in the national domestic violence plan, 'the query you have raised is no longer relevant'. [ Child homelessness a 'national shame', TDs and Senators told Opens in new window ]
Irish Examiner
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Irish Examiner view: Poverty is driving a wedge between generations in Ireland
We may all know it on some instinctual level, but ombudsman for children Niall Muldoon stating aloud that the children from Ireland's wealthier families are 'sailing away from the have-nots' is sobering nonetheless. This is a country which has been running budget surpluses and which has been among the world's wealthier nations since the Celtic Tiger era. And yet inequality persists, and is widening. We have 5,000 homeless children in a country which spends €350m a year housing homeless families in Dublin alone. Imagine that money being used to eradicate homelessness by purchasing or building homes. The cost of living crisis — and it is a crisis for many — is only exacerbating what was already a chasm between the haves and have-nots. Such a high number of families are living from pay packet to pay packet, even in cases where the pay should hypothetically see them in good stead, that anybody who can hold on to a few extra euro at the end of the month ends up slowly pulling away from those who cannot. There is also the phenomenon that just subsisting can prolong and deepen poverty. It's perhaps best, and most irreverently, known as boots theory, from a Terry Pratchett novel where the example given was that if you could afford a very good pair of boots, they would last for years, whereas if you can only afford cheaper ones that need to be replaced more quickly, you'll end up spending more over the same time period. Academic studies have identified similar circumstances where people have to rent instead of buy houses, for example; and the cost of rent is now astronomical in this country. Worryingly, while stress has long been known to have detrimental effects on health, the Patrick MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal, was told last week that poverty is actually making people age faster. Rose Anne Kenny of TCD said: 'The children experiencing depression at home, alcohol, drugs, homelessness, uncertainty, et cetera – those children age faster.' Most of these problems are within our ability to repair, or at the very least mitigate. We just never seem to be able to invest the right amounts in the right projects at the right time. Perhaps we need to start thinking beyond the years right in front of us. Future generations Calls for the Government to appoint a 'commissioner for future generations' are not without merit, even that sort of role might seem more long term than we're used to. Still, its supporters would say that's part of the point. Much social and economic policy is based on the short term — the next election, the next budget, or what have you. As a nation and a planet, we are now faced with sustained challenges that will continue to plague us long after our grandchildren have grown to maturity. Even apart from climate collapse or the seemingly ever-present threat of global war and deep recession, the looming increase in pension claimants is not going to go away, nor are the demands for services that go with a population that is both growing and ageing. As Sarah Carr of the Goal NextGen youth programme said: 'Today's policies shape tomorrow's realities, from housing and healthcare to climate and economy. We are the last generation with a real chance to get this right and a commissioner for future generations can pave the way for action.' As such, a move to a more holistic, long-term decision-making approach can only be a good thing, and a cultural shake-up that we could benefit from. What's your view on this issue? You can tell us here New crisis in Afghanistan Between the genocide in Gaza and ongoing illegal invasion of Ukraine, it can be easy to overlook the brutal totalitarian regime of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The more than 1.4m people fleeing or being expelled from Iran back to that country don't have the luxury of forgetting, however. Some 500,000 have been caught up in a crackdown following the Israel-Iran exchange of missiles recently, but the process had begun before that as Iran claims it no longer has the resources to support them. Now they are being accused of spying for Israel. Iran claims as many as 6m Afghans live in the country, while 20m people in Afghanistan rely on humanitarian aid to survive. While the deportees include people who have worked in Iran for decades as well as recent arrivals, the most ominous aspect is the number of women being sent back to a country that grows increasingly hostile toward women on a daily basis. The deportees are being left at border crossings — but because women cannot travel without a male escort in Afghanistan, some women and their children — including babies — are being left with little more than the desperate hope that some relative in the country's heartlands will take them in. Another 1m at least have been expelled from Pakistan. There is a very real danger that these already impoverished deportees will end up at the heart of a new humanitarian crisis. Given the Taliban's horrific human rights record, one wonders who might come to their aid. Read More Irish Examiner view: All set for a mesmerising 48 hours of sport
Irish Times
17-07-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
Better-off children ‘sailing away from the have-nots', warns Ombudsman
Children from Ireland's financially better-off families are 'sailing away from the have-nots', the State's Children's Ombudsman has warned. The number of children living in poverty has doubled in the last year, Dr Niall Muldoon told the Patrick MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal. 'They're sailing away from us. The haves are sailing away from the have-nots. And children are the ones who suffer there all the time,' he said. Nearly 5,000 children are currently homeless, even though the State has been running unprecedented budget surpluses in recent years, Dr Muldoon noted. READ MORE 'That's 2,200 families that need to be found a home. That priority has never been given to children, or families.' [ Child homelessness a 'national shame', TDs and Senators told Opens in new window ] Family homelessness was 'not even an issue' until 2012, when post-crash austerity 'kicked in properly' as the State moved away from providing public housing to depending on the private sector, he said. Currently, it costs the State €350 million a year just to house homeless families in Dublin, but the problem can be tackled, he told the summer school. 'It's not intractable. It is something that can be done.' The Government is unable to tell the Office for the Ombudsman for Children how much it spends on children, Dr Muldoon said. 'They can tell me exactly what the State spends on every brick in the [National] Children's Hospital , but not what they spend on children.' Equally, it can explain that the State's mental health budget has grown by a fifth in the last five years to €1.3 billion, 'which is still about half of what most other countries do, but they can't tell me what they spend on children'. Three-quarters of all mental health issues begin in childhood, the summer school heard. 'You would think 75 per cent of the budget, or 50 per cent of the budget should be spent on that. It's not. The reason it isn't is because it allows the other part of the system to use it as a slush fund if necessary.' Chris Quinn, Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People, said the homelessness crisis is affecting even more children north of the Border, where 5,000 households are in temporary accommodation and 18,000 are registered as homeless. 'It baffles me as to why we have silence on this. In the South, there's a huge outcry about homelessness and the housing situation. In the North, it isn't, but those figures are mind-boggling. [ Children have 'borne the biggest brunt' of homelessness crisis Opens in new window ] 'Poverty's sitting at about 25 per cent. So, one in four children are living in poverty. One in four children are going to school hungry, whose mommy or daddy is choosing to heat the house, or put the dinner on the table for themselves and their children,' he said. One in 10 of 11- to 19-year-olds in a recent Northern Ireland survey declared that they would engage in self-harm, with one in eight young people having suicidal ideation: 'Our child adolescent mental health waiting lists are through the roof,' Mr Quinn went on. The consequences of poverty make people age faster, said Prof Rose Anne Kenny, the founding principal investigator of the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) and the chair of Medical Gerontology at Trinity College Dublin . 'Children who experience circumstances actually have an accelerated ageing process,' she said. 'The children experiencing depression at home, alcohol, drugs, homelessness, uncertainty, et cetera – those children age faster.' The faster ageing can be tracked biologically: 'We're creating a society, or a section of society, which will not get a chance at any stage unless we get it right now,' Prof Kenny said. Looking at lessons that can be learned from the United States, Prof Kenny said it has been clearly shown that people who possess a Bachelor of Arts degree die later and are far less likely to die in middle age than people who are poorly educated. Urging parents to encourage children to read and to read to them, Patricia Forde, the State's Laureate na nÓg, warned that the number of children who read regularly, or at all, is falling dramatically – largely explained by the rise in social media use. 'My grand ambition is very simple. I would like every child in Ireland to be a reader. And when I say reader, I don't mean literate, and I don't mean reading as a hobby,' she told the summer school. 'I want children who are reading for pleasure and who form a habit of being readers so that they grow up with something that is beside them at all times that they can read. So, that would be my magic wand moment.'
Irish Independent
26-06-2025
- Health
- Irish Independent
Ombudsman ‘utterly dismayed' by issues around children's needs
Children's ombudsman Dr Niall Muldoon called for the full and direct incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Irish law as he questioned whether ongoing scandals around child homelessness and scoliosis waiting lists would be as severe this year if they had been addressed earlier. Dr Muldoon told the Oireachtas Children's Committee on Wednesday that direct incorporation of the convention is 'the most important thing' that can be done to protect and safeguard the rights of Irish children. He said Ireland had already committed to these rights but there was a need to put 'real force' behind the international obligations. Dr Muldoon told the committee: 'It will put children's rights at the heart of every decision within the public and civil service, and give us a stronger basis to ensure we are keeping our promises to children. 'For example, imagine if five years ago the State had to come up with a child and family-focused home strategy. 'Would there still be 4,775 children in emergency accommodation today?' He added: 'Or if our recommendations around scoliosis as a children's rights issue as far back as 2017 was made against the backdrop of direct incorporation, would there be the same crisis as there is today?' Dr Muldoon said Ireland should be able to better funnel resources to where they are 'needed most', adding that societies are judged on how they treat their most vulnerable. He said: 'As ombudsman for children, I am exasperated and utterly dismayed at the persistent chronic issues around access to affordable housing for children and families, at the unacceptable delays in access to vital surgeries and assessments of need in a country as well-off as Ireland economically. 'We are now at a crossroads in terms of what can be achieved for children, and in the current climate of political uncertainty and change it's more important than ever for the State to bed down its commitments on children's rights.'
BreakingNews.ie
26-06-2025
- Health
- BreakingNews.ie
Ombudsman ‘utterly dismayed' by issues around children's needs
An ombudsman has said he is 'exasperated and utterly dismayed' at chronic issues around children's needs. Children's Ombudsman Dr Niall Muldoon called for the full and direct incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Irish law as he questioned whether ongoing scandals around child homelessness and scoliosis waiting lists would be as severe this year if they had been addressed earlier. Advertisement Dr Muldoon told the Oireachtas Children's Committee on Wednesday that direct incorporation of the convention is 'the most important thing' that can be done to protect and safeguard the rights of Irish children. He said Ireland had already committed to these rights, but there was a need to put 'real force' behind the international obligations. Dr Muldoon told the committee: 'It will put children's rights at the heart of every decision within the public and civil service, and give us a stronger basis to ensure we are keeping our promises to children. 'For example, imagine if five years ago the State had to come up with a child and family-focused home strategy. Advertisement 'Would there still be 4,775 children in emergency accommodation today?' He added: 'Or if our recommendations around scoliosis as a children's rights issue, as far back as 2017, was made against the backdrop of direct incorporation, would there be the same crisis as there is today?' Dr Muldoon said Ireland should be able to better funnel resources to where they are 'needed most', adding that societies are judged on how they treat their most vulnerable. He said: 'As ombudsman for children, I am exasperated and utterly dismayed at the persistent chronic issues around access to affordable housing for children and families, at the unacceptable delays in access to vital surgeries and assessments of need in a country as well-off as Ireland economically. Advertisement 'We are now at a crossroads in terms of what can be achieved for children, and in the current climate of political uncertainty and change, it's more important than ever for the State to bed down its commitments on children's rights.'
