Introduction - The Focus on Children Perspective.

The way a society treats its children reflects not only its qualities of compassion and protective caring but also its sense of justice, its commitment to the future and its urge to enhance the human condition for coming generations.
Javier Perez de Cuellar, UN Secretary General, Lignano, Italy, September 1987

With the convention on the rights of the child, the United Nations has given the Global community an international instrument of high quality protecting the dignity, quality and basic human rights of the world's children.
Javier Perez de Cuellar, UN Secretary General, General Assembly, September 1989


Focus on Children is an organisation formed by voluntary organisations throughout Ireland, North and South, determined to use their combined experience to influence and support policy makers in developing a strategic direction to take children's services into the twenty first century. Drawing on the work of 9 specialist committees and a specially commissioned review of the literature and research on children's services in Ireland, Focus on Children has produced this set of Blueprint papers.

These Blueprint papers do not claim to be an exhaustive review of all that is currently known about the state of children on the island of Ireland. Rather, the ten papers presented in three sections are a contribution to the ongoing debate of how best to promote the rights of children on the island of Ireland.

Faced with high levels of poverty, alienation and social exclusion which has lead to Ireland being given Objective 1 status as a disadvantaged region within the European Union, it would have been all to easy to produce purely a shopping list of demands to put before policy makers. Certainly an important part of these Blueprint Papers is the recommendations that appear at the end of each area covered, but what is crucial to understand is the conviction of a reachable undertaking. From the hard practical experience of the organisations that make up Focus on Children it is clear that a unique opportunity now exists for producing an action programme to radically improve the life chances of Ireland's children.

  • The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a unifying vision which can promote solidarity whilst allowing for diversity.

  • The pursuit of that vision requires openly acknowledging the full extent of existing needs and the limitations of the service response to date.

  • The development of a sufficient and appropriate response must go forward in a co-ordinated and coherent fashion based on partnership between the voluntary and statutory sectors and between service providers and service users.


The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN General Assembly in November 1989. It was ratified by the United Kingdom in December 1991 and by the Republic of Ireland in September 1992. While the rights of children had already been guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents, the Convention, for the first time, applies these principles specifically to children themselves and recognises that these rights are possessed by children, by virtue of their human existence, independent of governments or adults granting them these rights.

In asserting the inalienable nature of a child's rights the Convention recognises the extent of children's dependency on their adult carers. Thus article 5 states:
States Parties shall respect the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents or, where applicable, the members of the extended family or community as provided for by local custom, legal guardians or other persons legally responsible for the child, to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child, appropriate direction and guidance in the present convention.

This article raises the central question of the relationship between the rights of children and the rights and responsibilities of their parents and other relevant adults. If dependant children have rights as against their parents there has to be a third party to assert and assist in the achievement of such rights. It is clear from the Convention that this responsibility must fall to the state. Any discussion around the issues of children's rights must revolve around the creative interplay between the rights and