COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

Forty-thirdsession

11-29 September 2006

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONVENTIONON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

List of issues to be taken up in connection with the considerationof the second periodic report of IRELAND (CRC/C/IRL/2)

Part I

Under this section the State party is requested to submit in written form , additional and updated information, if possible, before 5 August 2006 .

A. Data and statistics, if available

1.Please provide disaggregated data (by sex, age groups, ethnic and minority groups, urban and rural areas) covering the years 2003, 2004 and 2005 on the number and percentage of children under the age of 18 living in Ireland.

2.In the light of article 4 of the Convention, please provide additional disaggregated data for 2004, 2005 and 2006, on budget allocations and trends (in percentages of the national budget or Gross Domestic Product) regarding the implementation of the Convention, evaluating also the priorities for budgetary expenditures given to the following:

(a)education (different types of education, i.e. pre-primary, primary and secondary;

(b)childcare services, including day-care centres;

(c)health care (different types of health services, i.e. primary health care, vaccination programmes, adolescent health care and other health-care services for children);

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(d)programmes and services for children with disabilities;

(e)support programmes for families;

(f)support for children living below the poverty line (please also specify the criteria for “poverty” and indicate the number of children living below the poverty line);

(g)the protection of children who are in need of alternative care including the support of care institutions;

(h)programmes and activities for the prevention of, and protection from, child abuse, child sexual exploitation and child labour;

(i)juvenile justice, juvenile crime prevention and social reintegration; and

(j)other social services.

Please also indicate the estimated expenses of the private sector, in particular for health and education.

3.With reference to children deprived of a family environment and separated from parents, please provide disaggregated data (by sex, age groups, and ethnic and minority groups, urban and rural areas) for the last three years on the number of children:

(a)separated from their parents;

(b)placed in institutions;

(c)placed with foster families; and

(d)adopted domestically, or through intercountry adoption;

4.Please specify the number of children with disabilities, disaggregated by sex, age groups and ethnic and minority groups covering the years 2003, 2004 and 2005:

(a)living with their families;

(b)in institutions;

(c)attending regular schools;

(d)attending special schools; and

(e)not attending any school.

5.Please provide information on the number of children abducted from or to Ireland.

6.With reference to child abuse, please provide disaggregated data (by sex, age groups, ethnic and minority groups and types of violations reported) covering the last three years on the:

(a)number of reported cases of child abuse;

(b)number and percentage of reports that resulted in either a court decision or other types of follow-up.

7.Please provide disaggregated data (including by sex, age groups, and ethnic and minority groups, urban and rural areas) covering the years 2003, 2004 and 2005 on:

(a)the enrolment and completion rates, in percentages of the relevant group, in pre‑primary schools, in primary schools and in secondary schools;

(b)rates of literacy under 18 years old;

(c)rate of children completing primary and secondary school;

(d)number and percentage of dropouts and repetitions;

(e)teacher per child ratio.

8.Please provide disaggregated statistical data (including by sex, age groups, ethnic and minority groups, urban and rural areas) on early pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), mental health problems (e.g. suicide rates, eating disorders, depression), drug use, and alcoholand tobacco abuse covering the years 2003, 2004 and 2005. Please also provide numbers of health professionals working in the health-care services for children.

9.Please provide disaggregated statistical data (including by sex, age groups, ethnic and minority groups, urban and rural areas) on children infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS.

10.Please specify the criteria for “poverty” and indicate the number of children living below the poverty line. Please also specify the support for children living below the poverty line.

11.Please provide information on the number of children dead or seriously wounded from road accidents.

12.Please provide appropriate disaggregated data (including by sex, age and type of crime) covering the years 2003, 2004 and 2005, in particular on the number of:

(a)persons under the age of 18 who have allegedly committed a crime, reported to the police;

(b)persons under 18 who have been sentenced, and type of punishment or sanctions related to offences, including length of deprivation of liberty;

(c)persons under 18 who have been tried as adults;

(d)detention facilities for persons under 18 in conflict with the law and thesefacilities’ capacity;

(e)persons under 18 detained in these facilities and those detained in adult facilities;

(f)persons under 18 kept in pretrial detention and the average length of their detention;

(g)reported cases of abuse and mistreatment of persons under the age of 18 that occurred during their arrest and detention.

13.With reference to special protection measures, please provide statistical data (including by sex, age groups, ethnic and minority groups, urban and rural areas) covering the years 2003, 2004 and 2005 on:

(a)the number of children involved in sexual exploitation, including prostitution, pornography and trafficking, and the number of those children who were provided access to recovery and social reintegration services;

(b)the number of children involved in substance abuse and the number of those children who received recovery and reintegration services;

(c)the number of migrant, unaccompanied, asylum-seeking and refugee children;

(d)the number of children involved in labour who are under the age of 16;

(e)street and homeless children.

B. General measures of implementation

1.The Committee would appreciate receiving information on intended or planned activities related to recommendations contained in the Committee’s previous concluding observations on the initial report of Ireland (CRC/C/15/Add.85) which have not yet been fully implemented, in particular regarding: the implementation of the recommendation of the Constitutional Review Group (para. 24); the Convention being fully incorporated as part of the domestic law (para. 25); corporal punishment within the family (para. 39); and the juvenile justice system (para. 40). Please explain the obstacles to implementation of the Convention, and how the State party envisages overcoming them.

2.Please indicate whether the Convention on the Rights of the Child has been invoked directly in domestic courts during the reporting period, and if so, please provide examples of such cases.

3.Please provide additional information on the statusof the measures taken to improve the system for collection of disaggregated data on children under the age of 18 in all areas under the Convention.

4.Please provide information on the processes and mechanisms that exist for the efficient coordination of policy and strategy development with regard to programmes, services and laws for the implementation of the Convention.

5.Please inform the Committee about the process of bringing legislation into force and the reasons why some parts of legislation may take longer to enter into force than others, in particular, some parts of the Children’s Act of 2001.

6.Please provide updated information on efforts to provide training and raise awareness about the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and on efforts to bring human rights education into the curricula of educational and pedagogical institutions.

7.Please provide information on established consultation processes with the civil society.

8.Please indicate the issues affecting children that the State party considers to be priorities, requiring the most urgent attention with regard to the implementation of the Convention.

Part II

Please provide the Committee with copies of the text of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in all official languages of the State party, as well as in other languages or dialects, when available. If possible, please submit these texts in electronic form.

Part III

Under this section, the State party is invited to briefly (3 pages maximum) update the information provided in its report with regard to:

new bills or enacted legislation;

new institutions;

newly implemented policies; and

newly implemented programmes and projects, and their scope.

Part IV

The following is a preliminary list of major issues (which does not contain issues already covered in Part I) that the Committee may take up during the dialogue with the State party. They do not require written answers . This list is not exhaustive as other issues might be raised in the course of the dialogue:

1.Developments regarding the constitutional protection of the rights of the child;

2.Protection from discrimination, in particular with respect to children belonging to ethnic minorities and asylum-seeking children;

3.The State party’s strategy to significantly strengthen the Convention’s overall implementation, with particular attention to the general principles of the Convention (non‑discrimination (art. 2), the best interests of the child (art. 3), survival and development (art. 6), and the right of the child to express his/her views and be heard (art. 12));

4.Placement of children in alternative care;

5.Domestic violence, including corporal punishment, and sexual abuse;

6.Children with disabilities, in particular access to social and health services;

7.Childcare services and facilities, in particular the level of public services provisions;

8.Children at risk of experiencing poverty;

9.Children and education, including measures to handle bullying in schools, special needs of children, the possibilities to be heard available to children, and human rights education.;

10.Administration of juvenile justice, in particular with regard to the age of criminal responsibility, and places of detention for children;

11.Alcohol and substance abuse;

12.Trafficking in persons and sexual exploitation; and

13.Children belonging to a minority or an indigenous group, in particular children of the Traveller community.

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