Mairead McGuinness Fine Gael MEP

It is regrettable that when it comes to disability and in particular the institutionalisation of people with disabilities there is too little public pressure for change, Mairead McGuinness told a London conference this afternoon.

Delivering a keynote address to a conference organised by the Oak Foundation, held at Somerset House and entitled, ‘Bringing European Institutions together for Children and Ending Institutionalization of children in Europe’, the MEP, a member of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on Disability, said the ideals of the UN Convention (on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) are “still merely an aspiration for so many.”

She said the goal must be to continue the efforts towards family and community based care and away from the use of institutions and orphanages.

“The fine theory of the UN Convention and all other best-practice standards need to be translated into reality to facilitate the tens of thousands of children and adults in institutions to come back into society with all the necessary supports that will enable them to attain their rights, and to break the cycle of deprivation,” she said.

The MEP said this kind of care “requires a very different set of skills than those employed in institutions, where order, discipline structure prevail – with the emphasis being on making the system work smoothly rather that what is best of each child in care.”

She said some governments in Europe “seem to still believe that people with disabilities constitute a race apart. Where it counts, in the allocation of resources, the management of budgets and actions at ground level, they are signalling that those with disability do not belong in mainstream society. These are citizens of Europe, but Europe is failing them.”

The MEP pointed to a worrying trend showing that the numbers of children in institutions has increased across some Eastern European Countries since 2000. But, she said, the problem doesn’t rest with Eastern Europe alone.

“In the current economic climate, where the initial surge of post-accession spending has faded, when savings are to be made the first place that the scalpel falls is in the area of least resistance. The problems with institutions in Romania are echoed in many of the countries in the region, as well as in countries in the former Yugoslavia.”

McGuinness told the conference that Ireland is grappling with the realities of child abuse both past and present and the role played by church, state and wider society. “For a country which is longer in the EU than some of our Eastern European partners to be dealing with these issues now must surely point to a lengthy period of revelations about abuses in institutions which still exist.”

She warned that in countries such as Ireland where real progress has been made towards family based or community based case, “we must be extremely careful to ensure that progress does not stagnate or slide backwards, that people with a disability do not end up more adversely affected than their peers in the economic crisis. That is a challenge for politicians but it is also a challenge to administrators. If we are to do things better with less, we need to be very mindful that it can only be done if we genuinely put the child’s needs first.”

She said the lives of people with disabilities in accession countries should be improved by joining the EU as governments become exposed to existing European norms, but for many NGOs is has not happened fast enough, or in some cases has not happened at all.

“In most European countries the physical barriers have come down. However, there are huge attitudinal barriers that must be tackled. It is clear that we need to do some things differently. We need to spread our sphere of influence. It is only right that politicians are put under pressure to implement fully the UN convention and are held to account but we also need to begin an education process in communities where institutions are currently the norm.

“We need to get a conversation going in communities, in schools, workplaces, maternity hospitals, in pubs and street corners which raises the realities of institutionalised care and opens both the eyes and minds of the public. In that way, pressure will come from the ground up and it will have lasting impact.”

McGuinness said the work of the Oak Foundation and many other NGOs and philanthropy groups is vital. “Your work unfortunately is necessary to keep pressure on the political system but is also important that this work extends beyond the political system.

“We need your knowledge on the ground to guide us. We need quality scientific research. Your help in providing the hard, scientific evidence about where we are going wrong could significantly help the process of change. It is also important that you keep alive the initiatives and projects that you are already funding,” she said.

Ends

A 2009 study by Eurochild estimates that around 1% of children are taken into public care across the whole EU. A recent UNICEF report ‘At Home or in a Home’ found that despite reform efforts, more children are becoming separated from their families and the numbers in formal care are increasing, now standing at 626,000, across Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, the highest in the world.