CONSTRUCTING THE CHILD IN NEED OF STATE PROTECTION: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN IRISH POLITICAL DISCOURSE, 1922-1991.

This essay draws on parliamentary debates and official reports to trace the changing conceptions of the child in need of protection which shaped Irish legislative developments at key points of reform. There have been significant shifts in constructions of childhood and children's needs in Irish political discourse over the course of the twentieth century. Nonetheless it is argued that a certain degree of continuity over time is apparent in representations of the child in need of protection. Whether viewed through the lens of morality/spirituality, psychology, or more recently children's rights, within twentieth-century Irish parliamentary discourse, the "problem" of the child in need of protection has for the most part been construed in somewhat narrow terms, impeding examination of the intersection between generational inequalities and those related to social divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]