Lets grab this chance to give our children the priority they deserve

EMILY LOGAN is the Ombudsman for Children. Appointed by an interview board made up of children, she has already begun to make a considerable impact on public policy.

There are lots of different ways in which State policy interacts with children and young people, and those involved in the development and implementation of such policy are already beginning to keep an eye on Ms Logan.

They know how determined she is to ensure the independence of her office. And they know she is interested in one thing only — making sure that children get a fair deal.

Last Friday, she said this: “As Ireland’s first Ombudsman for Children, I have called for the inclusion of a clear statement of children’s rights in the constitution many times since my office was established just over two years ago. Today’s announcement by the Taoiseach is a positive step in the right direction.”

She went on: “Almost one-third of the population in Ireland today are, by legal definition, children. Many are without a voice and all are without a vote. And because young people don’t have a vote they remain invisible and politically vulnerable. Is it any wonder that so many schools are housed in dilapidated buildings; that in Celtic Tiger Ireland there are not enough resources to support children with special needs or that children in care of the State do not always get a fair deal? Children are not ‘mini’ adults with ‘mini’ rights. We need constitutional change to achieve full rights protection for children. Today’s historic announcement opens up a real possibility for change.”

What she was talking about, of course, was the Taoiseach’s announcement that the Government intends to hold a referendum on the rights of children. For all of us who work in the area, it was great news.

But since the announcement was made, people have been asking me one question above all the rest. Why was this necessary? Surely our children are already fully protected by the constitution? Why do we need to change now?

Well, the truth is that our constitution provides for a lot of things, but it has never provided for our children to have any rights of their own.

As citizens, for example, the constitution gives us a strong right to own private property — and the existence of that right has influenced public policy in a host of different ways. But that right is really only exercisable by adults — the fact that the right exists has never had any impact on children. In fact, the only right in the constitution that can be said directly to apply to children is the right to a primary education. Even that right has never been regarded as unqualified — if it were, there wouldn’t be any legal cases about young people with disabilities trying to secure an education that meets their needs.

The underlying assumption throughout the constitution is that the needs of children will be met within their families. Have you ever read how the constitution describes the family? It says: “The State recognises the family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.”

That’s some formula, isn’t it? Those of us who have spent years struggling to raise kids, wondering if we were doing it right, wondering if there was anyone out there who could help at times — we never knew we were a moral institution, did we?

Yet over the years, so much of public policy has been developed around that concept. Children will thrive best within the family. Children will be able to meet all their developmental needs within the family. Children will never be abused or neglected within the family. Children don’t need rights because the family has inalienable ones.

Of course all that is true up to a point. Emily Logan said the other day that most of our kids live in happy homes and are being brought up to enjoy the best we can offer.

But as the Taoiseach also said, when he was announcing the intention to hold a referendum: “It is very clear that our country has frequently failed to respect and protect many of its children. Some of the worst cases of institutional abuse arose partly because of an environment in which the interests of children were often not recognised or were systematically ignored. It is not enough for us to look at a terrible picture of past abuse and deplore it — we have to be willing to understand its full lessons. And we must learn from these experiences by developing a new culture of recognition and protection of the rights of the child — the most vulnerable member of our community.”

WHEN making that announcement, the Taoiseach was inviting public debate. Yesterday, as our contribution to the debate, the organisation I work for, Barnardos, proposed two simple amendments to the constitution. The first would insert a provision covering child protection and welfare in Article 40, which covers personal rights.

If it were adopted, it would oblige the State from now on to guard with special care the welfare of children and to make that welfare the paramount consideration in any decision made by the State in relation to children. The second would amend the constitution in such a way as to enable and oblige the State to intervene in exceptional cases where the welfare of children is under threat. We have argued that the wording we are proposing would place the welfare of children at the heart of our laws and constitution, and place an obligation on the State to make the protection of that welfare its paramount consideration in all matters concerning children.

While it would enable and oblige the State to intervene in those rare cases where the welfare of children was not being protected in the family context, it would still recognise, as our constitution always has, that the welfare of children is best realised in a nurturing family environment.

But the other thing we have done, apart from trying to devise an appropriate amendment, is to seek to establish what the view of the people are on this subject. We have commissioned the first national opinion poll, carried out entirely independently by one of Ireland’s leading research firms, Behaviour and Attitudes, to try to find out whether people thought that children’s rights should be inserted in the constitution.

The answer is simple. An overwhelming majority of Irish people — three out of every four — want to see children protected in the fundamental law of the State. Across all income groups, all regions of the country and all political persuasions, the message is the same. Protect our kids and ensure their welfare comes first.

There’s no reason to delay this referendum, and no reason to agonise for months about what we should be putting in the constitution. For far too long already, public policy has been developed in Ireland without any real regard for the need to recognise that children have rights, too.

We have a chance now to give children everywhere the priority they deserve. Let’s grab it.