Seen and Heard: Martin Collins on 10 years of the OCO

Martin Collins, co-director of Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, shares his opinions with Louise Denvir on what the 10 year anniversary of the Ombudsman for Children's Office means for children and children's rights.

Pavee Point is a human rights organisation focusing on the rights of Roma and Travellers in Ireland. Pavee Point works in many specific areas, including Drug and Alcohol addiction,Youth Work, Education, Information, Violence Against Women and Health.

http://www.paveepoint.ie/

For more information on Children's Rights and the 'Its Your Right' campaign, visit the Its Your Right website:

http://itsyourright.ie/

Hear from more of the leading experts in the industry, and advocates for children's rights on the It's Your Right Vimeo Channel:

https://vimeo.com/album/2864707

Text Transcript Below

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Martin Collins; My name is Martin Collins and I’m the co-director in Pavee Point, Traveller and Roma Centre.

Question; And tell me what does this 10 year anniversary mean to your organisation?

Martin Collins; It’s a very significant event, it’s a very symbolic event, I think since the establishment of the Ombuds Office for Children, I think they have made a huge impact on advancing the rights of children in terms of access to education, to health care and accommodation and so forth, since the establishment of the Ombud's Office for children’s rights, I think it’s contributed to a climate and a culture whereby children’s rights and children’s well being is focused on a lot more and features a lot more in public discourse. I think it has led to some significant and legislative policy change in this area for example the constitutional referendum on children’s rights is a very significant event and I think the Ombuds Office for children’s affairs has made a huge contribution to that as indeed did many other organisations such as the Children’s Rights Alliance and my own organisation which is part of the Childrens Rights Alliance. So I think we now have a culture and a climate as I say, where children’s rights are much more openly discussed and focused on, we now have a range of policies and strategies in place to address children’s rights, for the first time in the history of the state we actually have a Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. So, I think all these structures and mechanisms all goes well for children’s rights in Ireland.

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