Children’s referendum must be first step in systemic change
Once again the state authorities have abjectly failed children. Professionals reluctant to intervene, not because of the level of subterfuge entered into by the perpetrators, or a lack of legal authority, but some deeper flaw.
Despite all the evidence that they should take a contrary position, it would seem that our legal and social services still defer to the constitutionally exalted institutions of the church and family, rather than place first the protection of our youngest citizens.
The Roscommon Childcare Case report found that for nine long years the health board “staff did not exercise their statutory authority under the Childcare Act 1991 to protect these children at the earliest possible point”.
In the careers of paedophiles priests again and again we have seen the reluctance of gardaí and others to take action.
In the Roscommon case the ideological clash between the ethos of fundamentalist Catholicism — admittedly unrepresentative of the vast majority of practicing Catholics — and the statutory imperative to protect children was thrown into stark relief.
When the authorities did finally make a serious attempt in 2000 to take action a small group of right-wing Catholic activists stepped in to assist the parents in securing a High Court injunction restraining the health board from removing the children.
Catholic activist Bean Uí Chribín was named in court as among those who assisted the parents. Despite denials of direct involvement, she was quick to tell the Irish Examiner in January last year that “the state is attacking families and has been for years”.
For decades a furiously small yet active Catholic faction, operating both without and within the state, has managed to halt the reform of a system were legalisation protecting children has been fundamentally undermined by the failure to grant them strong enough specific constitutional rights, removed from that of the family.
In the Roscommon case, this failure manifested itself in the mother being able to obtain a High Court order without the voices of her children ever being heard. These weaknesses have been identified in numerous reports into state failures to halt child abuse and have led to an Oireachtas committee concluding that a constitutional amendment specifying children’s rights is necessary.
If the Murphy and Ryan reports uncovering the systematic abuse of children by clergy had not already proven the case beyond doubt, the Roscommon incident certainly does, that a date should be set for this referendum that would merely afford our youngest citizens rights bestowed on their European counterparts decades ago.
Inertia and ineptitude means the Fianna Fáil administration has resisted all pressure to set such a date. Yesterday Brian Cowen said the wording of the referendum “will revert to government in due course,” a position backed by his insipid Minister for Children Barry Andrews.
In other small European states, such horrific cases have resulted in a deep examination of the more unsavoury underpinnings of their societies.
It would seem long overdue that Irish citizens face up to the dark aspects of our past, among them the real role of the Catholic Church in our society, as well a colonial legacy that resulted in the family unit become introverted as it sought to protect itself for generations from the intervention of what was perceived as a hostile state.
As with other events that are shaking our nation, there is clearly a need for a wide-ranging debate from which new moral underpinnings for the state could emerge. The best place to start this process would be the holding of the children’s rights referendum.
As ISPCC chief executive Ashley Balbirnie said yesterday: “If no other good comes from this awful Roscommon case let it become a landmark for systemic change in Ireland. Let it become the moment we stopped talking about listening to children, and actually did something about it.”
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