21st February, 2002
Dr. Henry: I welcome the Bill and I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I advised her less than two weeks ago that one thing she should do before coming to the general election campaign was to introduce the Ombudsman for Children Bill and I congratulate her on taking my advice.
This is very important legislation because the word "ombudsman" is bandied about in this country with too much ease. The Minister of State has ensured the children's ombudsman will be an independent person, therefore it is extremely important for her to fight for the resources for the ombudsman and his or her office. I am sure she will have the support of both Houses of the Oireachtas in this regard.
Senator Jackman referred to the present general ombudsman, Kevin Murphy. To begin with, Michael Mills was a star in that office. This is an area where we have been extremely well served to date by those who have taken on these positions. I am sure the President will find someone who is eminently suitable to take on this position. The method of appointment is very good because the President is held in great respect by the people, as all our Presidents have been.
It is important for this ombudsman to be independent because the banking ombudsman is supported by the banking industry, which is hardly an independent person, and the insurance ombudsman is supported by the insurance industry. We all recall the trouble two independent insurance ombudsmen got into a few years ago when one had to resign from her position. It is extremely important that the Minister of State has ensured the independence of the ombudsman in this instance, on which I congratulate her.
I welcome the Bill in general. Some of the complaints made about it are similar to my own. However, there is one complaint which has not been made, even though Senator Quill touched on it. I am somewhat concerned that if a parent does not accompany a child to make a complaint, one parent will have to be informed of the complaint. This goes to the root of the problem for many children because it means they have no rights under the Constitution. Senator Quill rightly referred to a child who is in a totally dysfunctional family and is, in fact, in dispute with both parents. The fact that the parent must be informed of the complaint may lead to the complaint being withdrawn. The life of a child living at home could be made unbearable because of the fact they made a complaint. I am sure the Minister of State has a good reason for including this proposal but could we allow for exceptional circumstances whereby the parent would not have to be told the child has made the complaint? The dysfunctional family rather than the child is the problem in the case of many children who come before the courts. I hope something can be done about this aspect on Committee Stage.
I am concerned about the length of time which is allowed for one to bring forward a complaint on behalf of a child. Twelve months is not very long. Until the office is well publicised, as I am sure it will be - Senator Quill's idea of the person travelling around the country is a good one - complaints may not be brought forward until they are over the time limit. Perhaps we could look at that too.
Apparently, all parents have to go through all the investigations that can be made at departmental level and all possible judicial processes, which may take years. What happens to the child's complaint then? Is this period too long from the child's perspective? Is it time-barred if the child has not brought forward a complaint by that time? This is important.
It is very unfortunate that section 11(3) provides that a Minister can request that the Ombudsman for Children shall not investigate or shall cease to investigate an action against a Department or public body. I cannot understand why that is included because it stymies the effect of the Bill. A Minster can easily make representations about these matters. It seems that the issue does not even have to go before both Houses of the Oireachtas for consideration to see if the Minister has a reasonable point. I ask that that section of the legislation be removed.
I understand from the Bill that places of detention, apart from prisons, are being included. I presume Senator Jackman's worry is that children under 18 will be detained in prisons. I am extremely glad residential institutions for children who have been neglected or otherwise had to be taken into care are included because I have been extremely critical about the fact that there is not the same amount of inspection in the Ombudsman for Children Bill for residential institutions as there is for places of detention. That is a serious mistake in the Ombudsman for Children Bill. As Members will know, I objected to that. Children do not have a statutory right to be shown the rules of the institution, as have children in a place of detention, nor is corporal punishment statutorily banned in these residential institutions, while it is in places of detention. I very much welcome the fact that the ombudsman will have a role in this regard because it is extremely important.
The question of hospitals naturally concerns me very much. I am very concerned that private hospitals will not be included. I have been in contact with the Minister of State's officials, who have explained to me that there are difficulties in that regard. Should we not include private hospitals and let the institutions fight the difficulties? The complaints I have had, in general, have been from private institutions rather than public ones. In the past, I have had complaints from children, who are now young adults, who were detained in psychiatric institutions which were built to cater for adults and were full of adults. There were very few children in them and they felt that they had been seriously abused within those institutions.
If these institutions are private institutions, I do not believe that these children will be covered by the Bill, and that is very unfortunate. One person in particular, who had been in both private and public institutions of a psychiatric type, said that she felt better protected when she was in a public institution. That is only one case, but to hear of it from anyone is very distressing, particularly when one hears of it from people who were in dispute with their parents as well. This Bill will do very little for cases like that. We should try to make sure that these kinds of cases are covered. I suggest that we do a bit more about the voluntary hospitals when we get to that issue.
Like other Senators, I am concerned that the children of asylum seekers are not included. The Minister of State will probably be able to explain why, but we should try to include them if at all possible. This is particularly important if they are unaccompanied children. A very large number of them have entered the country in recent years, many more than one would have expected. There is a case before the courts at present in which a woman is accused of trafficking a child into this country. This area is important and perhaps we could manage to have it included in the Bill.
When the protection of human life in pregnancy Bill was passing through this House, I tried to bring in an amendment that would divide the category of "female person" who could become pregnant into "female person" and "female child". Even if we make no difference in how they are treated, it is always important when legislating to make the point that there is a difference between adults and children. That is what many people have said here today. I regret very much that that amendment was not accepted. Even if we were not to make any difference in terms of how we treated both categories, at least we would have recognised that there is a difference between a female person over 18 and a female child.
I commend the Minister for bringing this Bill before the House and I am quite sure we will all try to expedite it here because it would be splendid if it could be brought into law before the general election.
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