Child care policy: a provocative analysis and research agenda

The past five years have seen the beginning of long awaited and long overdue legislative reform in the child care area with the introduction of the Status of Children Act, 1987; the Adoption Act, 1988; the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act, 1989;the Child Care Act, 1991;the Child Abduction and Enforcement of Custody Orders Act, 1991; and the Foreign Adoptions Act, 1991. Further legislative reform is needed and has been promised, for example in the area of juvenile justice (as indicated in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress). The past few years have also seen the beginning of a public awareness of the whole question of the rights of children and their position in Irish society. Thus the Combat Poverty Agency and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) have been active in raising the issue of child poverty (e.g. Nolan and FarrellI990); the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (1987) and McKeown and Gilligan (1990,1991) have explored the issue of child sexual abuse; while Gilligan (1991) has published the first comprehensive book on Irish child care services. These developments have occurred within a wider context which has witnessed the Taoiseach's endorsement of Ireland's intention to ratify the United Nations' Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the formation of an Alliance for Children in Crisis in 1990.