The State has to look at the sort of abject poverty and deprivation that the family with 12 children making the news today was suffering, the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children said yesterday. Mr Frank Fahey said children brought up in those conditions do not get a fair chance. He was referring to the family of a 13-year-old pregnant girl, alleged to have been raped by a 20-year-old man.
Opening a conference on "Healing Child Sexual Abuse", Mr Fahey said intervention and prevention could solve a lot of problems. He was not saying these measures would stop child abuse, but they would help to protect children.
Mr Fahey said he was negotiating with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance for finance for this area. A lot was said about so much money being around in this country at present, but what was needed was discussion on new resources for the prevention of child abuse.
He said it was quite clear the 12 children in this family lived in abject poverty and deprivation. The State had to look at those sort of conditions. Children who lived in these conditions did not get a fair chance. Social exclusion, poverty and the difficulties that went along with these, needed to be addressed, he added.
The whole subject of child abuse was a very distressing and traumatic subject. Until recently, there was no widespread awareness of child sexual abuse. There was a need for better co-operation between the various agencies involved.
Mr Fahey said it was time to review the 1987 guidelines on child sexual abuse.
A certain percentage of existing efforts should be turned away from child protection after the incidents have happened and into child welfare, he said.
While they had put £40 million and extra staff into the protection of children over the last three years, he felt that they had to look at the whole area of intervention.