THE final WORD : Why even the mildest violence against our children can leave a mental scar that never goes.

(From Irish Independent)

Flowers decorate the storm drain where two dead little girls were found this week in Belgium. Stacy and Nathalie, half-sisters aged 10 and seven, had been abducted and murdered soon afterwards, while their adult carers sat drinking in a bar.

The Belgian royals broke off their holiday to acknowledge the shock felt in a community still haunted by the actions of Marc Dutroux.

This was a story you wouldn't want to read unless you had to. Too much suffering, too little joy.

Yet as the ISPCC rolled out a 10-point plan to better serve and protect Irish children, Belgium offered a salutary lesson. Outrage after the Dutroux scandal hadn't really changed the culture. All the talk hadn't saved two neglected girls.

Anyone looking afresh at the status of children in Ireland is genuinely surprised by how low it is, at the level of those levers that make or break change. On the surface, children look like they're at risk of getting too much, with occasional tragic exceptions such as the statutory rape fall-out which don't speak to what Irish people are really about.

Deeper down, the situation goes into reverse. While children in general are loved and celebrated, their actual official status resembles the status of women before the 1960s.