Denis Haughey Welcomes Launch Of The Children's Manifesto and Announces NGO Forum

Good afternoon.

I am delighted to have been asked to attend the launch of this important document today. The Manifesto paints a very serious picture of the current situation for young people in Northern Ireland in almost every area of life - health, education, standard of living, and protection against abuse.
I commend the team that produced it. It makes its points very clearly and succinctly. However, it makes for a very challenging read, with some stark messages:

Speaking not only as a politician, but also as a father of three, the statistics and examples contained in the Manifesto made me stop and think hard about the lives of children in Northern Ireland today, and about the challenge that we all face in working to secure a better and safer future for them.

The publication of the Manifesto is very timely. As you know the Executive is committed to the establishment of a Commissioner for Children as part of a wider Strategy for children. You have quite rightly called for such a strategy as the first step to ensuring that the needs of children and young people are met and their rights are respected.

From the outset we recognized that this is a task that we in Government cannot take forward alone. We need to work in partnership with key organizations the voluntary sector and, of course, with children and young people themselves.

With this in mind, we have spent the last two months engaged in a process of thorough and rigorous research and consultation. We are seeking a range of views about what the role and remit of a Commissioner for Children should be, and about the scope and content of a children's strategy. We are also seeking views on the very process of developing and taking forward our proposals, and how best to build in to that process the views of those whose position in society we are trying to improve – the young people themselves. I warmly welcome the Manifesto as a contribution to that process.

In the statement on 29 January the First Minister and Deputy First Minister announced that an inter-departmental group would be established to take forward this important work. This has now been done and membership is being extended to include all the NI departments as well as the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Court Service.

In addition to this, much consultation has taken place with representatives of the voluntary sector, many of whom are here today, whose drive and determination on this issue has been not only inspirational but invaluable. We have listened to your views and we recognize that there is real expertise in your organizations which we want and need to tap into.

In order to make this happen, we need a mechanism to give the voluntary sector a pivotal role and a powerful voice in the development and shaping of policy. I am therefore delighted to announce that we are establishing a Forum comprising representatives of non-governmental children's organizations, and organizations representing people with disability and people from ethnic minorities.

The role of the Forum will be to represent the views of children's organizations throughout Northern Ireland, and provide a two-way conduit of information in relation to the development of proposals for the Children's Commissioner and the strategy. We recognize that it is only through this process of on-going dialogue with those directly involved with children, young people and their parents that we can develop proposals which will actually work and that will go some way towards meeting the aims and objectives outlined in the Manifesto launched today.

The Forum will also be an important source of advice on appropriate mechanisms for consulting with children and young people. We accept that in the past we have not actively consulted with our young people, and it has been to our detriment in terms of the lost opportunities for a dynamic contribution from a third of our population.

But this is changing. Many organizations are now actively seeking input from young people, and we in central Government are looking to find creative and imaginative ways to engage the minds of our talented younger generation. We will therefore look to the Forum for advice on the best ways to do this. Because if anyone can tell us what a vision for the future for children should be like, it is children and young people themselves. Young people who have been saying things like:

'We should have a chance to make a decision, it's our lives, we should be allowed to make a change'.

This time, we will give them that chance - we will listen to them. After all, it's their future, not ours. Who better to say what they need to make that future the best that it can be?

The Children's strategy, like the Manifesto, will aim high. It will recognize that our children deserve the best. It will set challenging long term goals, and pave the way for a program of concerted, co-ordinated action across Government Departments to achieve them.

No-one should under-estimate the magnitude of the task. It requires nothing less than a fundamental reconstruction of the way in which the public sector addresses the rights and needs of children. We must radically change the way we do business.

From now on our approach -

Above all, it must reach into every area of Government activity that affects children and young people.

This approach will build on the core principles on which the Executive was founded. Already, our legislation policy and procedures must take account of the need for equality of opportunity and better community relations. We need to extend that approach to ensure that the objectives and goals in the strategy for children resonate throughout all that we do.

Of course this will take time to achieve fully. The young people of to-day will be parents, policy-makers, and even politicians before the task is complete.

That is why we must start now. Our children have inherited a legacy of conflict - we owe it to those children to give them the best, most secure future we can. With your help, I know that we can do that.