Child expert backs wording

The Government-appointed special rapporteur on children yesterday said the wording that will be voted on in November’s referendum will mean the “right children” entering the care system.

Child rapporteur Geoffrey Shannon, who is also chairman of the Adoption Board, said the wording, if passed, would allow many children a pathway out of care.

“Where the welfare and safety of the child is prejudicially affected, it is only then that the State will intervene in a proportionate manner,” he told RTÉ radio.

In particular, he said the wording would allow for the adoption of some children in long-term foster care whose parents are married, meaning that as of now they have been in a “legal limbo” between parents who cannot look after them and foster parents who cannot fully have them.

“The only way those children in care can be adopted is by constitutional change,” Mr Shannon said.

While the wording, unveiled on Wednesday, has received broad backing from across the political spectrum, some opposing voices emerged yesterday.

Former MEP Kathy Sinnott, a member of the Alliance of Parents Against the State which will campaign for a rejection of the referendum, said the wording “reverses the natural order”.

“This gives a neglectful State even more control over children. They are already not doing their job of protecting children and this gives them even more power to neglect,” she said.

Senator Jillian van Turnhout said Ms Sinnott’s arguments had “no basis”.

David Kenny, an assistant professor of law at Trinity College Dublin, said the wording was unclear but that he still welcomed it.