Child referendum threatens immigration control

CHILDREN’S advocates such as the ISPCC (Letters, March 9) have been using recent horrific abuse cases like that in Roscommon to make false claims about the proposed children’s rights referendum.

There is no bar in our constitution to removing children from abusive and negligent homes. The fact that there are almost 6,000 children in care constitutes ample proof of this.

In the Roscommon case, the ex-parte injunction preventing the removal of the children was given because the health board did not know about it beforehand and could not put its case. It could have had the injunction lifted immediately but inexplicably dragged its feet. The constitution was not a problem.