This Foundation Report is the second in a Special Report Series addressing the rights and well-being of children and youth in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Report corresponds with three key UNESCO aims: to strengthen awareness of human rights; to act as a catalyst for regional and national action in human rights; and to foster co-operation with a range of stakeholders and networks working with, or on behalf of, children and youth.

The focus of this second Foundation Report from the Children and Youth Programme (CYP) is based on a series of consultations undertaken with key stakeholders from the policy, statutory and non-statutory sectors in Ireland and Northern Ireland, where the twin processes of policy development and implementation were identified as recurrent concerns (CYP Foundation Report 1, 2011). Arguably, if child-centred policy is developed and implemented well the rights and well-being of children and young people should be protected. However, as governmental responses to the economic decline demonstrate almost daily, the extent to which these rights are protected has become increasingly precarious, often impacting on the well-being of the most marginalised and vulnerable groups1.