Silent screams

In 2011, the ISPCC's Childline service received an average of 2,360 calls and messages every day. That amounted to almost 840,000 calls last year, each one from an Irish child reaching out for help. We are to assume that these are calls from children who feel they have run out of options, and people to turn to.

The demand for the service is, in itself, not all that surprising. What was disturbing to read in Childline's annual report was that a lack of resources meant that a staggering 38 per cent of those calls went unanswered. That amounts to the voices of 800 emotionally fragile children not being heard by one of the few agencies that is at least trying to make a difference. Childline can only help when it makes contact with a child in trouble - imagine being the child for whom the phone rang out.

Child abuse and neglect is as real today as it always has been. We have had countless official reports into the scandals of what amounted to State sanctioned abuse, and apologies to those who suffered. Children truly are the voiceless in society - and it is a progressive one where channels can be opened to them for their voice to be heard. Childline is over 20 years in operation, yet in all of that time it has never received any funding from the State. Successive Governments have struggled with hearing the voices of the abused, as if by ignoring them they might somehow fall silent.

Politicians have rushed to support the idea of a Children's Rights Referendum, yet that urgency has somehow not resulted in anything for the electorate to support. The idea of a constitutional change to enhance children's rights was first raised back in 1993, by an Oireachtas committee that had investigated the Kilkenny Incest Case. Some thirteen years later, in November 2006, the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announced that his Government was to hold a referendum on children's rights. The current Government went as far as to appoint a Minister for Children who would sit at cabinet, and promised a referendum shortly after taking power. Over twelve months on, and we are still waiting.

Past attitudes within the Catholic Church led to the abuse of children. As recent events have shown, there were those who knew what was going on, but chose to do nothing. Yet the Catholic church has (albeit belatedly) adopted some of the most progressive and sturdy guidelines for the protection of children to be found anywhere in the world. Both priests and the hierarchy know that these rules are vital to prevent the sins of the past from being repeated.

The State, sadly, cannot say that it has done the same. We are currently awaiting a report into the deaths of children in State care. These are not historic cases of abuse, but deaths within the past decade. We know that 115 children who were in the care of the State died from 'unnatural causes' between 2000 and 2010. The Minister for Children has described the findings of the report - which was completed before last Christmas - as "very harrowing". If there is a reason for the report not to be published, I have yet to hear it - officially, it is awaiting "legal clearance".

Whenever the report lays bare how the State let down those 115 children, no doubt we will again be convulsed by what happened. The headlines will be dominated by official failures,  with little or no accountability from those who were entrusted with the care of the vulnerable. Perhaps we might finally get a date for that children's referendum. Yet, based on the information published this week by the ISPCC, even then, the voices of hundreds of children will still not be heard. Like a generation before them, theirs will be a silent cry.