THE OIREACHTAS COMMITTEE on Children and Equality was told today of a child who now has to have their jaw “broken twice” in order to fix orthodontal issues, after a years long delay in their care. 

Nuala Ward, the Director of Investigations for the Children’s Ombudsman in Ireland, spoke passionately about the worst affected cases that her office is seeing.

She said that these cases highlight the gap in services for children living in households impacted by poverty and financial hardship. 

“From a complaints and investigations point of view, we hear directly from children and families who are incredibly desperate to access what we would consider the most basic health services,” she said. 

Ward said that there is incredibly “waiting lists for paediatric dental services”, and that official bodies are not seeing the full extent of the impact that is having on the health of vulnerable children. 

“We’ve one child who is looking at having to have her jaw broken twice because she was five years waiting for surgery, it was five years waiting for treatment. She would never have needed it if she got the treatment that she had needed at the time,” Ward stressed. 

She said the Ombudsman is also “deeply concerned” about public health development checks for children. 

Ward explained that the HSE’s current “cradle to grave” model of public health checks is not sufficient, and that there is a need for an infant-focused developmental checks model. 

“Zero to Five is critical for the development of children, and so we would be very focused on access to basic, universal services,” she said. 

Tricia Keilthy, the Ombudsman’s Head of Public Policy, told the committee that it is high time for Ireland to uphold the UN Convention on the rights of the Child. 

She said that other EU countries have already made legislative changes to put a legally binding standard of living for children into place. 

“The State is currently failing to uphold this right as over 260,000 children live in households experiencing deprivation,” she said. 

Keilthy said that the reality behind this statistic is that children are living in homes that are “cold and mouldy”, and are “going without a decent breakfast” and arriving to schools in uniforms that are “worn out”. 

She said that the Government needs to start by implementing Child Rights budgeting. 

“We need to integrate child rights impact assessments into the budget process to ensure that fiscal decisions are compliant with obligations under the UN [convention],” Keilthy said. 

She added that another major issue is that Child Benefit Payments that were committed to for children in direct provision in budget 2024 by the Government have not yet materialised. 

“Children in Direct Provision can face extreme deprivation, and yet the Child Benefit type payment promised… has never been provided,” she said. 

She added that better financial support is also needed for children and families with kinship care arrangements (children living with a grandparent, or another family member) as research shows that these children are also at increased risk of poverty in Ireland.