Change of direction needed to avoid failing children

I am voting in favour of the children’s rights referendum.

However, the initiative cannot disguise the hypocrisy of a Government that has put children on the frontlines of an ideological attack on ordinary people commending the proposal to the country.

Fine Gael and Labour have unrelentingly implemented an agenda of austerity that has made even the IMF shudder at times. As a result, we now have a struggling education system, a collapsing health service, and increasingly marginalised voluntary and community sector. All of these provide vital pillars of a healthy and stable childhood.