It’s easy to forget the important things in life

Stories which in normal times would have been newspaper front page headlines are now relegated to the inner pages. We cannot blame newspaper editors for that. When I was a working journalist I attended many meetings where the editor had to take tough decisions about what should be on the front page.

Right through the Troubles, when terrorism was at its height, normal news which would have deserved the front page at any other time had to be sacrificed for news of the death and destruction our country was exposed to daily.

I worked for editors who would have deserved an Honour, at the very least an OBE from the Queen. None came their way that I was aware of.

I’m certain some of them lived in fear of their lives, yet they remained stoic and brave, reluctant to bring attention to themselves.

And much the same is happening today. The disaster that is Brexit is hogging the headlines and will do for a long time to come. Reading one of our home produced newspapers this week I had got to Page 11 before I became aware of one mother’s terrible tragedy. In fact her story was at the bottom of the page. Mrs Marie Ferguson’s nine-year-old daughter Raychel was one of the children who died from hyponatraemia in 2001. In fact four children died of the illness. Those deaths, according to an official report, could have been avoided. The report alleged doctors covered up failures in patient care.

A bulletin published this week by The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Ireland showed ‘no progress in preventing child deaths here’. Mrs Ferguson was pleading this week for politicians to return to Stormont and ‘fight for our children’.

Our politicians aren’t listening and the party most adamant it won’t return to Stormont until all its requirements are met showed the highest levels of hypocrisy of all. Sinn Fein who clearly regard themselves as white as driven snow and who recently voted for abortion in the south of Ireland had said nothing publically about one of its member’s plans to host a walk-in advice service for constituents in the parochial hall of St John’s Church in Moy. Tyrone Pro-Life Network has a lot to say about it and their voices should be heard.

Another story concerns the high child death rate in Northern Ireland, one which in the normal course of events would have been on the front page. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Ireland has warned that the political deadlock here is ‘risking the health of children’. Mental health issues and obesity are seriously damaging the health of our children. It’s not difficult to

conclude that an abortion-supporting party such as Sinn Fein which puts its demand for the introduction of the Irish language ahead of finding a way to improve the health of our children is a party which need to take a serious look at its priorities.

In my cupboard are some boxes of chocolates left after the Christmas fest. This week I read that much of our chocolate is produced by child labour in West Africa. Ghana and Ivory Coast, according to an article in the business section of the Daily Telegraph, are the world’s two largest cocoa producers with their combined production contributing 60pc of the world’s annual supply of cocoa.

The average cocoa farmer in Ghana earns 60p a day. Over two million children work in the cocoa fields of Ghana and Ivory Coast. Forced labour and child trafficking is common. Sixty-four pc of the children are under 14, many of them unable to go to school. Working conditions are hazardous.

So next time you open your favourite well-known brand of chocolate it’s highly likely children operating with machetes to crack open cocoa pods were involved in its production. It’s a story which deserves front page coverage. It doesn’t even merit that in the paper’s business section.

It’s easy to despair for the health of our children. Yet our politicians appear not to be listening.