Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) is a charity in Ireland dedicated to enhancing the lives of children and young people. It provides a range of services to children and families in Ireland, and promotes children's rights.

The ISPCC is best known for its free confidential listening service, Childline. It also provides a range of support services from its offices around Ireland. Its support line is available daily to anyone in Ireland concerned about a child.

The ISPCC was founded as a successor to the

The first Irish branch of the NSPCC was founded in Dublin in May 1889, with branches founded in Cork and Belfast in 1891.^[2]

Services

The ISPCC provides a wide range of services. Annually, ISPCC Childline has over 100,000 conversations with children, through its phone, online and web chat services.

Childline is a free, anonymous and confidential service, that is available to children 24-hours a day by phone, text, and online web chat.

The society publishes an annual report which details the volume and types of calls received and the reasons why children call.

History

Inspectors

Each branch of the NSPCC and ISPCC had an inspector who was paid a salary and was provided with a house that doubled as a local office.^[2] Their job was to investigate child abuse or neglect.^[2] They were nearly all men and were recruited from the ranks of retired army personnel and police.^[2] Each answered to a local committee of volunteers.^[2] A brown uniform was worn by inspectors and they were popularly known as "cruelty men."^[2]

Inspectors acted independently and were not answerable to the branch committee, though they were answerable to the honorary secretary of the committee, though the onus was on the inspector to communicate with superiors.^[2]

Social conditions

From the 1930s to the 1940s many people lived in squalid conditions.

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse concluded that the society had played an important role in committing children to industrial schools, though the exact extent is unclear as some reports are missing.^[2] Poverty was the main reason children were committed to residential care – the idea of supporting families with financial aid was advocated by the society as early as 1951.^[2]

Funding and expenditure

The ISPCC is funded almost 80 per cent from fundraising, both public donations and others. In 2011 the ISPCC had an income of €6.5 million.^[4] It spent more than one third of this on fund-raising and promotion.^[5][6]

Controversies

In 1999 then ISPCC Chief Executive Cian O'Tighearnaigh resigned his post following accusations of fraud in relation to non-payment of commissions to collectors.^[7] He gained an injunction barring the DPP from bringing a prosecution against on the grounds that the delay in instituting criminal proceedings had prejudiced him in obtaining a fair trial.^[8]

In September 2011 an ISPCC advert titled "I Can't Wait Until I Grow Up" featuring a young boy being repeatedly assaulted by a man was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) for breaching rules on gender equality. The ASAI noted that previous adverts by the charity also solely featured male abusers and that "the portrayal of only male characters as the abusers was in breach of the provisions of the Code". The code states that "marketing communications should respect the principle of the equality of men and women" and "should avoid sex stereotyping and any exploitation or demeaning of men and women". The ISPCC technically complied with the ruling by removing the video from its own website but neglected to remove the banned video from YouTube and claimed that the decision would make it difficult for them to produce material on child abuse in future.^[9][10][11]

Ambassadors

The list includes: Brian O'Driscoll,