The Irish Times

Today the Irish Times reports that 20% of children in the 'care' of the State have no assigned social worker. Dear God, after all that has been learned by the Ryan Report that exposed the systematic abuse of children in the care of the Irish State over decades we remain today in a position where children remain at daily risk. The excuses are gone, we did not know, things were different then, we did not have the money for services, all of these excuses have been used by the Government in the past yet they have done nothing. Today thousands of children are in the 'care' of the Irish State without any formal protection. This government have misspent billions on luxury items while the very fundamentals of any modern democracy have been ignored, the care and protection of the nations children is the corner stone of any modern democracy yet this Government has decided to feather its own nest while neglecting the nations children. All of the talk by John O Donoghue and Birty Ahern about protecting children was all lies, these men like this government are simply headline makers, pointing the finger somewhere else so that nobody looked too closely at their bank accounts. It is a crime against Humanity that this government has not spent a small sum of money to protect the children in its care but can spend billions on bailing out bankers and speculators. Shame on this Government and shame on they who are its cheer leaders.