Parents may end up losing their children

IN the article “State failing to protect tortured children” (June 24) solicitor Catherine Ghent said children whose parents are married are “discriminated against” and “placed at greater risk” under the Constitution as the state can only move in where there is “an immediate and fundamental threat” to the child.

In the Baby Ann case, Supreme Court judge Adrian Hardiman said: “The constitution does not prefer parents to children. It prefers parents to third parties, official or private, priest or social worker, as the enablers and guardians of the child's rights.”

The constitution allows for children to be taken into care and possibly given up for adoption “in exceptional cases, where the parents for physical or moral reasons fail in their duty towards their children”.