The Children’s Rights Alliance is a coalition of 80 non-governmental organisations, and the current report is based on research that was verified by an external assessment panel, including experts such as Mrs Justice Catherine McGuinness, president of the Law Reform Commission, and Sheila Greene, professor of children's research at TCD.

The report says the Government's poor performance rating in the area of Early Childhood is due to:

• the Government’s decision to halt its commitments to roll out early education support to deprived areas; 
• its failure to measure progress on tackling child illiteracy; 
• its delivery of only 11 of the promised 40 new staff to the National Educational and Welfare Board.

In order to improve its performance, the report says Early Childhood Care and Education services should be rolled out in disadvantaged areas and a new literacy target should be set for all children.

Jillian van Turnhout, chief executive of the Children's Rights Alliance, said many of the results were shocking.

“In Ireland, we believe that we value children, but the startling evidence shows otherwise,” she said.

The Government also received an E grade for its performance in the area of mental health. The report says most mental health teams around the country have long waiting lists for treating children. Nationally, more than 3,600 children are waiting for psychiatric assessments and more than 1,000 of these will have to wait more than a year.

For children with acute psychiatric problems, there is a major shortage of beds, with just 16 of the 100 recommended in-patient beds available. This means some children end up in adult psychiatric hospitals.

The report also judged that the Government performed poorly in areas such as safeguarding childhood by not tackling alcohol abuse among teenagers and failing to deliver a promised national sexual health strategy.

Divisions in society between rich and poor are deepening, the report says, with less-well-off children bearing the brunt of poor public services and long waiting lists. Despite improvements in material wellbeing, more than 200,000 children are still at risk of poverty, i.e. with a family income of less than €337 per week.

In addition to Mrs Justice McGuinness and Prof Sheila Greene, the external panel which verified the Government’s performance, as judged by the Rights Alliance, included Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole; ICTU assistant secretary general Sally Anne Kinahan, and Finola McDonnell, senior policy executive at employers’ group IBEC. (Source: Irish Times)