When was corporal punishment banned in ireland

Weekly Podcast. The Explainer is a weekly podcast from TheJournal. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Newsletters : Sign Up. Partner Publications. The latest Irish and international sports news for readers and members. A platform helping fund the type of in-depth journalism that the public wants to see. Calls for Ireland to finally outlaw corporal punishment in the home Corporal punishment was banned in schools in but is still legal in homes — despite repeated calls for it to be stopped.

Image: Child sitting in a hall via Shutterstock. There is a balance to be found between supporting parents in effective parenting, in particular, in use of non-violent forms of discipline, and the use of criminal law to impose criminal sanctions on parents who do not adhere to best practice in parenting. Short URL.

About the author:. Christine Bohan. See more articles by Christine Bohan. Contribute to this story: Send a Correction. Read next:. Embed this post. Your Email. Recipient's Email. Your Feedback. Your Email optional. Report a Comment. She told me she had showered them with treats in the days afterwards because she felt so bad about it. On the one hand, they're saying it's okay to resolve problems with violence and then they're giving a completely different impression with their sorrowful words and treats.

It's no wonder children can be utterly confused by such behaviour. Fortune, who specialises in child-parent relationships, says punishments such as smacking and 'the naughty step' are especially ineffective for children under four years of age. They don't make the link between behaviour and action. The best thing to do would be to let them see the toy going in the bin and to tell them that it won't be replaced.

And make sure it isn't replaced - otherwise, more mixed messages are being sent out. Meanwhile, Fortune has a message for those parents who believe it is their right to be able to discipline their child as they see fit. You'd be outraged. And yet, some see nothing wrong with doing the same to their own children.

Others are uneasy about what they see as the State stepping into the private world of parenting, with Renua leader and mother-of-one Lucinda Creighton concerned that parents might find them criminalised for behaviour that was considered perfectly normal even in the recent past.

The notion that a parent who lightly smacks a child might be criminalised is a step too far. The ISPCC's Grainia Long believes Minister Reilly's proposals should have gone further "and banned slapping outright", but she says new legislation is likely to lead to a sea-change in how parents treat their children.

The parenting blogger who admits to having slapped her children in the past believes it will be a step in the right direction. Now, that would be unthinkable because society's attitude has changed so much. So while it's common to see a stranger slap their child in public, I'm confident that there will come a day where it will be so rare, it would be the most shocking thing to see.

Of the 27 EU member states, 16 have enacted laws to prohibit corporal punishment in all settings, including in the home. Ireland is not one of them and consequently violates a European charter. The European Committee of Social Rights made its ruling after a formal complaint from UK-based charity Approach - the Association for the Protection of All Children - despite the fact that British parents can still, legally, hit their children.

Sweden was the first country in the world to ban the slapping of children in and was quickly joined by neighbour Finland. Countries as diverse as Denmark, Latvia and Cyprus all made slapping illegal in the s, but the sea-change has really taken hold since , when Germany, Spain and Portugal all enacted similar legislation.

But the change in the law which brought about this first case of its kind was well-signalled. The October issue of the INTO primary teachers' magazine In Touch explained that the Offences Against the Person Non Fatal Act had brought corporal punishment in schools, banned by the Department of Education since , "under the ambit of the law and defines it as an illegal act".

It went on: "All primary teachers know that corporal punishment has been abolished in our schools for more than 15 years now. Does this new regulation mean that something else has changed? In fact there is a significant difference. Until now, teachers found to have used corporal punishment were in breach of departmental rules and whereas they could be severely reprimanded, punished or even dismissed, they were not guilty of a criminal act.

The new regulation, however, is a statutory instrument and has the force of law. In fact, the regulation could not have been clearer: "The law under which teachers are immune from criminal liability in respect of physical chastisement of pupils is hereby abolished.

Ms Fionnuala Kilfeather of the National Parents' Council Primary put yesterday's decision in the context of Ireland's ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which gives Irish children international legal protection of their "right to bodily integrity". Mr Begley appears to have been an unfortunate teacher who lost his head under pressure and struck a child, thus becoming the first teacher to be convicted under the new legislation.