In Irish society there are currently over 6,000 children cared for under statutory obligation of the state, (Tulsa 2015) in order to look at how the state provides guardianship, firstly it should be defined as to what denotes “a child” and their “fundamental rights” in regards to a family, under current legislation. A child as defined by the Child Care Act 1991, is an unmarried person under 18 years of age, in the Irish Constitution (1937) their guardianship is central to their family life, under article 42, parental autonomy is a paramount feature, however the state does have a right to withdraw this parental sovereignty when the needs of the child have not been met. The state owes a duty of care to ensuring …show more content…
Throughout the later part of the 19th century well into the 20th century, any or all childcare provision was predominantly provided for by voluntary bodies, mainly by religious orders, and encompassed a predominately catholic ethos. The care was mainly based on the social risk model, which was strict and enforcing and met the individual needs of the institutions rather than those of the children. A child could be institutionalised for any apparent reason, purely for being from the wrong social class, or for not attending school, in so far as the 1908 children’s act conveyed concerns for the moral environments of the children (Graham …show more content…
Outlining the failings of such institutions, including the lasting effects and consequences of faulty unregulated systems, of state childcare provision in Ireland, and In effect changing provisions to adopt the developmental model (O’Sullivan 1979) of childcare delivery which is based on the needs of the child and which statutory childcare provision now places emphasis on, when possible to find, a child a home like environment rather than institutionalisation when the need to state child car