Growing levels of alcohol abuse and obesity continue to undermine the wellbeing of Irish children, a children’s rights organisation has said.

A report by the Children’s Rights Alliance for 2011 has given the Government a grade of D minus for progress on its commitments to children in the areas of education, health, material wellbeing and safeguarding childhood, the Irish Times has reported.

Speaking at the launch of the report, Alliance chief executive Jillian van Turnhout warned that the Government had “failed to recognise the serious problems of alcohol consumption among teenagers and has taken no steps to address the impact of parental drinking on children”.

According to the report, one in every six cases of child abuse in Ireland is attributed to alcohol. Figures show that up to 104,000 children aged under 15 are living with parents who abuse alcohol.

The report also says that there has been a 500 per cent increase in childhood obesity among Irish boys in the past four years, with 25 per cent of all nine year olds overweight or obese in 2009.

Ms van Turnhout said the Government’s failure to deliver its National Nutrition Policy, which it announced six years ago, must be rectified.

The Children’s Rights Alliance, a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working to secure the rights of children, has 90 members including Barnardos, the Society of St Vincent de Paul and Amnesty.

An external assessment panel, which includes president of the Law Reform Commission, Justice Catherine McGuinness, verifies the Report Card, which is now in its third year.

This report welcomed the progress on child and adolescent mental health, scoring it a C, up from a D minus grade last year. The report commended the opening of the mental health unit for children and teenagers in Galway as well as the shielding of the sector from more serious cuts.

The best grades were awarded for work undertaken in early childhood education where the free pre-school year was welcomed, and in care and social work provision, where 200 new social workers have been appointed. While both areas received a B, it was noted that continuing delays in garda vetting meant some pre-school programmes were forced to cancel services.

Speaking at the launch, Justice McGuinness said on the issue of alcohol that while “vested interests” urged a policy of education on alcohol, “price, its increasing availability as a loss leader in supermarkets and the granting of licences in every little shop in the country” needed to be controlled.

Ms van Turnhout called on political parties to use the report’s findings as a “blueprint for action. More than half of the recommendations made in the report do not cost a penny; simply by getting departments talking to one another would make a difference.”

Both she and Justice McGuinness called on the incoming administration to prioritise the referendum to strengthen children’s rights in the Constitution.