Report highlights serious weaknesses in child law

SERIOUS weaknesses in child law have been identified in a new report published yesterday by the Law Society.

Author and child expert, Geoffrey Shannon, who put forward the blueprint for reform, said the Constitution was ‘extremely’ inadequate in providing children with rights as individuals.

“For how long do we, as a society, need to be scandalised by the likes of the Kilkenny incest investigation, States of Fear and the Ferns report,” he asked.

Childhood, the author said, did not stand still while grown-ups considered the merits of constitutional change.

“An entire generation of children have grown up since we first started debating the issue,” he noted.

Mr Shannon also warned that some children were seriously disadvantaged and vulnerable to having second-best choices made for them - in the absence of a constitutional provision protecting their interests.

“Without constitutional change, the rights of children in Ireland will never be truly recognised, nor will Ireland live up to ... international law.

“The Council of Europe recommends that we guarantee children’s rights through explicit recognition in constitutional texts.

“One such fundamental right it identified is the protection of children against all forms of abuse.”

Mr Shannon pointed to hundreds of children in long-term foster care, who can only be freed for adoption if their parents are branded as legal failures.

The Supreme Court recently moved away from enumerating children’s rights by holding that the Government is responsible for articulating children’s rights. Such children now inhabit a legal limbo.

The report, which will be submitted to the Department of Health, also highlights the need to ensure children have a voice in court proceedings that affect them and the need to strengthen the law, and supports, for child asylum seekers.

Chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance, Jillian van Turnhout said the report’s findings were disturbing.

“Bad law means children are left vulnerable to abuse and without a means to have a say on decisions affecting them,” she said.

Meanwhile, campaigners fighting for a new national children’s hospital last night accused the Health Services Executive of a lack of ambition.

The Children in Hospital Ireland charity is seeking a “super-hospital” with the potential to become a centre of excellence for the care of sick youngsters, but a Government report suggested the hospital should share a site with adult hospital.

Speaking at a children’s health conference last night, charity chief executive Mary O’Connor expressed her concerns to HSE chief Professor Brendan Drumm.

She said: “The new national children’s hospital should be a major academic teaching hospital in its own right, attracting top class clinical, teaching and research personnel.

“Why not have a stand-alone hospital? The benefits of having a children’s hospital alongside an adult one are not clear-cut.”