Remarks by Denise Charlton, Chief Executive, Community Foundation Ireland (17th June 2025)
Community Law and Mediation is a true leader.
As a pioneering centre you are a voice for the voiceless, champion of climate justice and now a promoter and a protector of children’s rights.
At Community Foundation Ireland we are a proud to call you a partner.
We see all your work as strategic, thought-leading and agenda-setting.
It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that this particular piece of work was supported through the generosity of television viewers of the Late Late Toy Show Appeal.
That generosity turned into action through the expertise, insights and knowledge the Foundation has gained during 25-years as a philanthropic hub.
That experience and our connectivity to 5,000 voluntary, community and charitable partners allows grant-making which gives us an ability to respond to long-standing and emerging challenges alike.
What makes this research particularly compelling is that author Róisin Webb has placed the voices of children and young people at the very centre to inform her recommendations.
In the past week I saw another example of this when I met the student council at Rutland Street National School in Dublin 1 at the launch of the Child Poverty Monitor by the Children’s Rights Alliance.
Our policymakers maybe struggling to find solutions to stop our spiralling child poverty crisis – but I can tell you the children in Rutland Street have absolute clarity, it is investment in communities, access to sport, access to services and opportunity.
Your inclusion of a special youth advisory panel has given this report that same clarity, that same directness and that urgency which is so badly needed.
Once again today’s findings show that children who are most at risk of poor outcomes in areas like care, education, housing as well as mental health and disability services continue to be denied their rights. This is in spite of some progress made on implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The fact that many of the children, their guardians and carers have limited knowledge on those rights increases the danger that they will be denied, side-lined or ignored.
We must overcome that lack of awareness to ensure those rights are respected and protected.
As well as identifying the problem and putting context on it, Rósín and the extensive network of agencies, organisations, advocates, experts and children she has consulted have helped identify a way forward.
Your recommendations should be endorsed by all who believe in the rights of children.
Placing the delivery of children’s rights inside the Department of the Taoiseach within the existing Child Poverty Unit not only sends a signal that this is a Government priority, it puts greater political drive and ambition where often there is too little or none.
The need for a Specialist Legal Service to champion access to justice for our children will likewise motivate a move to child-friendly justice which is so badly needed.
Fear, lack of knowledge, uncertainty must not stand in the way of any child needing to assert their rights as enshrined in law.
Your recommendations rightly identify that the barriers to asserting rights are rooted firmly in disadvantage.
It should be a matter of national shame that this disadvantage and inequality is widening at a time when on paper at least our country is wealthy.
We are seeing a generation where poverty and material deprivation is on the march. The further under-mining of child rights goes hand in hand with those rising figures.
As we mark 25-years of Community Foundation Ireland we are focusing on our mission of Equality For All in Thriving Communities.
With partners like CLM and I see others in the room today, including Tanya and the Children’s Rights Alliance, we are looking at where that mission sits amid the uncertainties we face today.
Your work, the Child Poverty Monitor and our Poverty Income Inequality and Living Standards Research with the Economic and Social Research Institute, the latest edition coming in September, give us a pathway forward.
We will work with you, our supporters and philanthropists to find ways to advance down that path.
As we meet today organisations of all sizes right across the country are working on pre-budget submissions and their elevator pitches for the next time they bump into the local Minister.
We all know about current uncertainties – and the possibility that this budget might be our last opportunity to get something really meaningful included on children’s rights.
As a partner and a convenor the Community Foundation is committed to working with you in the weeks ahead to keep the pressure on to get effective measures into October’s Budget.
I will end where I started to acknowledge the RTÉ Toy Show Appeal – without viewers coming out with such huge generosity during one night in December to support children we would not be here today.
Thank You.
The full report is accessible Here.
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