Painting a brighter future?
THE decision taken to hold the children’s referendum on a Saturday has been welcomed by many as it will facilitate many voters in returning home to their communities to vote. A Saturday will also ensure schools do not have to close on a school day to facilitate polling stations.
We are also, however, holding the referendum on a day of the week in which some of our most vulnerable children will have little or no access to social workers and social work departments.
One of the most scandalous gaps in the State’s provision of childcare services is the position of out-of-hours supports. Childcare, as any parent knows, is not a five-day, 9-5 job. Therefore any referendum which fails to be backed up by a substantive package of measures to give real meaning to children at risk is simply not worth the paper it’s written on.
Unfortunately we have heard little from the Government during the course of this campaign as to how it intends this constitutional amendment to achieve the objective of ensuring that children’s rights are positively vindicated.
Notwithstanding these fundamental difficulties, there are many elements of the proposal which are of merit. Article 42A.2.1 provides for a balanced approach to the question of State intervention in family life in a way that is proportionate and only in circumstances where the safety and welfare of a child is “likely to be prejudicially affected”.
This sensible approach protects the child in need and yet makes redundant the false argument that these changes were designed to allow unfettered State intervention in family life.
In practical terms the effect of this amendment on children born to married parents in long-term foster placements cannot be underestimated. Such children were never afforded a second chance with a new family who loved and cherished them in a way that was denied to them by their birth parents. This amendment has the potential to remedy that hugely unjust situation by providing for the equalisation of adoption laws.
Aside from the adoption area, however, there is very little which will bring real change to the children and parents I meet and represent on a daily basis. There is a strange lack of logic and a massive contradiction in approach to be asking citizens to pass a referendum in order to protect children and at the same time allowing multiple services that help children to be run into the ground.
If you are a parent of a special needs child who requires round the clock care and attention this referendum on children’s rights achieves nothing.
If you are a child in need of extra educational supports this debate is irrelevant to those needs.
If you are a homeless child presenting at a Garda station for shelter and having to go through the appalling out-of-hours service this referendum does nothing for you.
If you are a child trying to rely on our disgraceful mental health service for minors, no protection is given in this amendment to the constitution.
If you are a child prisoner in St Patrick’s on 23-hour lock-up without a reason, no reliance can be placed on the new provisions.
If you are a child born into a loving same-sex relationship the proposed wording offers nothing to that child in terms of rights vis a viz both its parents.
If you are a child in the care of the State, perhaps all your life, and having reached 18 years are told ‘you’re on your own’, where does the Constitution afford you protection in terms of proper aftercare?
Indeed there has been a subtle shift in the course of this debate from talking about the children’s rights referendum to the current position where we talk in terms of the children’s referendum. This is because while this referendum may be about children, it’s not really about many of their rights. The much trumpeted right of the child’s voice to be heard in proceedings is a limited right under the new proposals and is in contravention of the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Yes campaigners have yet to give a credible explanation as to why the right to be heard in all judicial and administrative proceedings have been diluted. We are left in a situation where, for example, Irish-born children with non-national parents do not have the same right as their peers. Children’s voices in the immigration system will continue to be silenced.
Against the backdrop of an appalling list of injustices against children, so graphically highlighted in a slate of recent reports, wasn’t this referendum the golden opportunity to create the strongest possible constitutional response to show that the State was offering our young people a new guarantee? It’s a referendum which lacks ideas, vision and backbone.
* Gareth Noble is a partner in KOD Lyons Solicitors and heads their Child Law Department, representing children in courts and in care.
THIS coming weekend, the nation will be asked to go to the polls to change Bunreacht na hÉireann and enshrine the rights of all our children. The Irish people have a huge attachment to our Constitution and do not change it lightly. Having spent the past number of weeks attending meetings around the country I know, unfortunately, there are still many people from all walks of life who are unclear on what the referendum is about, why it’s being held, and what it will change.
These are perfectly valid concerns and I think there are a number of reasons why people are voicing them. This is the first referendum since the Good Friday Agreement where every political party is asking us to vote yes. All NGOs for children are also calling for a yes vote. With no debate or contention between the parties, the media do not have as much to report on and the referendum doesn’t feature as prominently in people’s daily agenda.
The difficulty with this is that in the absence of well-informed debate, less accurate claims creep in.
On the yes side, too, there have been occasions when the effects of passing the referendum have been overstated and the improvements in child protection made under previous administrations have been casually disregarded.
Families know there have been improvements and that they have had a positive impact. For example, on a practical level and in recent years, they know that the last government increased the number of special needs assistants for vulnerable children from 200 to over 10,000. And in the teeth of the recession they know 200 extra social workers were hired and the free pre-school year introduced. Denying the progress that was made serves no useful purpose.
Nor should anyone claim that the referendum is a panacea. Even with this change, the effort to protect children will need to be adequately resourced and I have repeatedly called on the Government to commit to this. In order to see the aspirations of this amendment become reality, resources and a better co-ordinated approach to child protection, must be there. We need to ensure that vulnerable families are given all the necessary supports and that social workers are available when needed, regardless of geography.
In Fianna Fáil, we are calling and campaigning for a yes vote. We are doing this because this constitutional change is the next logical step in a journey of improving child protection that has made advances over the last decade.
The wording you are being asked to vote on marks an important contribution to advancing children’s rights in Ireland. The key principles underpinning the proposed amendment were developed by my colleague Barry Andrews. They are recognising children’s rights, treating all children equally regardless of the marital status of their parents, upholding the best interests of the child, and ascertaining children’s views in all judicial proceedings concerning care issues, adoption, guardianship, custody, or access.
There is also a provision for the State to intervene to protect a child in exceptional circumstances and only by proportionate means.
We believe that enshrining these principles in the fundamental laws of the land will be a major step forward for children’s rights in Ireland and will help us live up to the dream of the 1916 Proclamation to “cherish all the children of the nation equally”.
The wording that we are being asked to vote on allows protection for children under the Constitution under a new article 42(a) while continuing to respect the rights of the family as set out already in article 41. It is important to point this out because there has been an effort to sow seeds of misinformation from no campaigners to the effect that families are being undermined. This is untrue.
Another area where some confusion has arisen is in adoption and what difference we will see if the amendment passes.
The amendment will allow the children of married parents who have been in foster care for over three years the right to be adopted, so that they too, like the children of unmarried parents, can fulfil that most basic human need — to legally become part of a loving family that is able to care for them.
Surely, as a society we should give these children the opportunity of belonging to a family.
If the amendment passes, we will still need to fight to make sure that adequate resources are made available for children’s services and we will still need to work hard to ensure that we as a country are genuinely listening to children and legislate where necessary to ensure children’s rights are obtained; ie the right of unmarried fathers access to their children.
But the challenges of the future should not stop us from doing the right thing now. We need to pass this referendum. We need to vote yes on Saturday.
* Robert Troy, TD for Longford–Westmeath, is Fianna Fáil spokesman on children
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