Oireachtas Committee on Children and Equality

Opening Statement by the Ombudsman for Children, Dr Niall Muldoon

Thursday, 26^th June 2025

I thank the Chair and the Committee for inviting us to discuss Tomorrow Starts with Us; The Ombudsman for Children’s Office 2024 Annual Report. I am joined today by OCO Director of Investigations, Nuala Ward and OCO Head of Policy Dr Tricia Keilthy.

The Ombudsman for Children’s Office is an independent statutory body with two main duties, namely, to deal with complaints made by, or on behalf of, children about the actions of public organisations, and to promote the rights and welfare of children under 18 living in Ireland.

Last year we celebrated our 20^th Anniversary –, the OCO was established in 2004 by the Ombudsman for Children Act 2002- and our Annual Report for 2024 reflects this milestone year for our Office.

Anniversaries like these are important, because as well as providing us with an opportunity to pause and reflect on what’s come before, they provide a fresh impetus to focus on the future.

This is highlighted for us through our 20th anniversary theme of Tomorrow Starts with Us, which was decided upon with the help of our brilliant Youth Advisory Panel and reminds us of our raison d’être in working towards a better tomorrow for all children in Ireland.

In 2024, the OCO continued to receive a high volume of complaints about children’s public services, with a total of 1,772 contacts about complaints made to our Office last year.

Again, the complaints we receive are becoming more complex, with almost one in five relating to more than one agency, and a third relating to multiple categories of concern.

As in previous years, education remains the most complained about issue to our Office, with 33% of all complaints relating to education. This is followed by Tusla on 19% and complaints about children’s health services at 15%.

Throughout 2024, we engaged with almost 2,500 children through Rights Education workshops and school visits around the country. 63% of these schools were DEIS schools, a 14% increase on 2023, and nearly two thirds of the schools that travelled to the OCO Office, came from outside Dublin.

Last year we also delivered workshops directly through the Irish Language to three gaelscoileanna, and continued important outreach work in Direct Provision and accommodation centres, Oberstown Children’s Detention Campus, CAMHS and community and voluntary centres.

We marked our 20^th Anniversary last year with a number of events and publications. This included two wonderful children’s parties at the Swan Youth Service in St Agatha’s Hall in Dublin’s North Inner City and at the Mayfield Sports Centre in Cork City. We also joined up with MIC Thurles for a three-day Summer School celebrating youth voices in education, and carried out a survey of over 1,000 secondary school children on the issues facing young people today and the Ireland they would like to see in the future.

We found that the same issues at the forefront of public discourse are some of those same issues that worry our young people. Topics like the cost of living, future housing needs and access to mental health services. And yet, these are not necessarily treated as ‘children’s issues’ at the decision-making table.

In our Annual Report for 2024 we also highlight our concern that children seeking international protection are still living in insecure and unregulated settings and that, despite longstanding recommendations, HIQA still does not have remit to inspect emergency accommodation centres.

We also feature case studies that demonstrate some of the complaints and subsequent issues dealt with by our Office. These include the case of six-year-old Enda*, whose mother contacted us when her son was locked in a room at school due to his disruptive behaviour. Enda’s story highlights the importance of strong guidelines around Behaviours of Concern at school, which the OCO has engaged with the Department of Education on throughout the year.

We also outline how a change to the eligibility criteria on the application form for the Long-Term Illness Scheme for children with ADHD has made a huge difference for families who contacted us when they were told they weren’t eligible.

What is striking for us is that 20 years since the OCO was established, many of the same issues for children are still coming up today. Of the 177 complaints received in 2004 for example, around 17% related to access to services for children with disabilities. This shows us that while there has undoubtedly been progress for children on many fronts, the consistency of the issues raised 20 years apart reinforces the need to properly place children’s rights, all of them, at the fore of policy decisions and service provision. That is why our Office is committed to driving our campaign for the full and direct incorporation of the UNCRC into Irish law.

Incorporation is the most important thing we can do to protect and safeguard the rights of all children in Ireland. Every issue we highlight in our Annual Report in front of you today leads us back to the need to give real force to the international obligations we have already signed up to.  It will put children and their rights at the heart of every decision within the public and civil service and gives 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 homeless strategy, would there still be 4,775 children in emergency accommodation today? Or, if our recommendations around scoliosis as a children’s rights issue as far back as 2017 were made against a backdrop of direct incorporation.

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 assessment of need, and I am deeply concerned about the crisis in relation to children in special emergency care. In a country as well off as Ireland economically, we must surely be able to better funnel our resources into where they are needed most. If a society is judged on how we treat our most vulnerable, what does our record on these issues say about us?

I have said that we are now at a crossroads in terms of what can be achieved for children, and in the current climate of uncertainty and change, it is more important than ever for the State to bed down its commitment on children’s rights.  And so our Office will continue to push for the rights of children to be the signpost that is followed at all times. By doing that we can bring to life the Government’s promise to make Ireland the best place in Europe for children to grow up.

Thank you for your time today. I look forward to your questions.

 

 

• 27 June 2025
• Type: Speech
• Topic: Child Protection, Children in Care, Disability, Housing