Dangerous form of State control

I wish to warn all thinking people in this country about this proposed change in law regarding children’s rights.

It is the most dangerous piece of totalitarian State interference I have ever read in my 42 years of studying history.

Here are just a few points to prove my point.

n“The State recognises the imprescriptible rights of all children.” Really? What rights? We are not told, naturally. So voters will have no idea what “rights” they are voting for. who will decide on these so-called rights? The State. And parents will have no say in the matter. The State will become the defenders of these “rights” and will enforce them. This is totalitarianism by any other name. This also deprives parents of the right to protect their children from danger.

n“In exceptional cases where the parents fail in their duty to their children, so that the safety and welfare is likely to be prejudiced, the state as guardian of the common good, shall endeavour to supply the place of the parents. “Welfare” here is not clearly defined. This lack of clarity is deliberate. It really means that social workers can literally invade a home, any home, with complete authority and remove a child from that home and their family. For its own “welfare” of course. With full State backing.

It also puts great pressure on judges to decide the matter. Parents will have to go to court, against powerful State sponsored mandarins, to keep their own children. This is unthinkable. But if this nation does not clearly reject this in the referendum, it will happen.

It is nothing less than tyranny. “Provision shall be made by the law of voluntary placement for adoption of any child.”

So here this Blue Shirt government actually wants us to authorise their agents to forcibly remove a child, any child, from their home and loving parents if those parents don’t “toe the line” regarding rearing and education of their own children. This is outright communism.

Parents who are innocent of any wrongdoing can (and will) have their precious children forcibly removed into either State “care” or other, highly unsuitable, families. Imagine the heartbreak.

Considering recent examples of State “care” of children, I would not trust this lot to care for my canine companion.

In addition, all such decisions will be made in secret. Decisions and reasons for them will not be recorded.

This stuff forcibly reminds me of what Karl Marx wanted: state secrecy, state control of children enforced by tyrannical laws and parents threatened, maybe jailed for resistance to such state control. This is outright communistic totalitarianism.

Marianne Kelly

Cork Road

Waterford