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	Editorial: State Has a Duty to All Our Children The Herald July 15, 2011 http://www.herald.ie/opinion/editorial-state-has-a-duty-to-all-our-children-2822834.html It has a been a bad week for the way we protect our children in Ireland. First, we had the damning Cloyne Report on clerical child sex abuse over a 13-year period and how the Catholic Church failed to implement its own guidelines to protect children. It found that the greatest failure by senior churchmen in the Diocese of Cloyne was omitting to report all cases to the gardai. Yesterday, a mother was jailed for eight years after a horrific litany of abuse against her own children for almost a decade -- despite the fact that the family had previously come to the attention of social workers. After Cloyne, the Government announced plans to jail priests and others if they fail to disclose information on child abuse. Children's Minister Frances Fitzgerald today unveiled new guidance on child protection rules, along with a HSE plan to implement them consistently across the State. The suffering of children, detailed in the Cloyne Report and in the Co Galway court case, must not go unanswered. The State must live up to its duty to protect its children.
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