Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I was not a member of this committee but I compliment its Chairman, Deputy Mary O'Rourke, and the members of the committee on their important work.

Campaigners for children's rights in this country have long sought a constitutional amendment to protect children. My colleague, Deputy Shatter, has been lobbying for such an amendment since the 1970s. Those campaigners have been subject to a number of unsavoury accusations over the years, mostly suggesting that giving children rights would somehow damage the family or would not be in the best interests of families. The theory appeared to be that children's rights constituted a zero-sum game - the family had to lose if the children were to win. That can only be true in circumstances where the parent abuses the child, for example, where children are beaten, sexually abused, raped or bullied. In those circumstances it would be abhorrent to seek to trap a child within the family when they clearly need to be removed for their own protection. Families within which a child is abused do not deserve the protection of the State or the law.

Until very recently we had not accepted the need to protect children in the manner in which it is now proposed. For example, social workers were traditionally painted as Orwellian figures intent on snatching children from the hands of loving families. They were figures to be feared and were viewed as people in society who were in some way distrusted. That must be the reason there is so little outcry at the dire shortage of social workers in the State and the extremely restrictive hours they work. Generally, we hear about these issues in the context of systems failures. The question is asked: where was the social worker? Why was the social worker not present? Why was the social worker not informed? I would prefer to ask the question: why does the Government believe social workers are only required during office hours? Why are social workers regarded as not being needed at weekends? Similarly, foster families were not given the credit they deserved. For some reason there appears to be very little effort to encourage foster care in the State.

In the past 18 months I have asked parliamentary questions about specific care plans for foster children. The figures I received clearly show that in areas such as Dún Laoghaire, Dublin south east, Dublin south city and Dublin west, the Health Service Executive currently has care plans for less than 50% of children. Undoubtedly, there should be care plans for all children in care. Foster children are often in a vulnerable position and need that basic right.

Regarding the court orders granted to facilitate children entering care, where a court order fails to specify visiting arrangements regarding supervised access by parents, those in loco parentis or other parties the HSE tends to allow access in an almost ad hoc way which is often detrimental to the child's interests and a cause of great distress for them.

I regret the Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, has left the Chamber but I will have another opportunity to inform him that we should be careful about the way section 37 of the Child Care Act 1991 is applied, which deals with the manner in which court orders are granted. The interpretation of such court orders by the HSE often works in a way that is detrimental to the child and that is not specifically intended when the case is initially heard before the sitting judge. The manner in which these orders are interpreted, or the manner in which silence with regard to a specific aspect of care is interpreted by the HSE, can cause some distress for those in loco parentis.

I am aware of a case where a child would begin bed-wetting when a parental access visit was upcoming, such was the distress caused by such visits. The mother would constantly threaten to take her away from the safe and loving foster home in which she resided. The mother threatened to come to the child's school to embarrass her and to appear at her First Holy Communion to spoil her day. The visits were harrowing for the child who was a vulnerable victim of psychological abuse arising out of inept and abusive parenting, yet those visits were allowed because the law is currently balanced in favour of the parent, often to the detriment of the child.

The Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children has done major work on this issue in the past three years. I commend the members for their role in what is undoubtedly an historic political development. I specifically compliment the enthusiasm and tenacity of the former Minister, Deputy Mary O'Rourke.

Since 2007 the committee has met on 62 occasions in 15 public sessions and 47 private sessions. It published two interim reports as well as a lengthy, well-researched final report. My colleague, Deputy Shatter, using his vast expertise as a family lawyer and his sincere personal commitment to protecting children's rights, has played an important role in the committee and has represented our party extremely well.

The amendment proposed by the committee is clearly imbued with an ethos of child welfare. It strikes an appropriate balance between child welfare on the one hand and parental rights on the other. In respect of parents, it refers to both rights and responsibilities, for example, the right and responsibility of parents to provide according to their means for the physical, emotional, intellectual, religious, moral and social education and welfare of their children.

The suggested amendment also provides that where the parents of any child fail in their responsibility towards the child the State, as guardian of the common good, shall, by proportionate means, as shall be regulated by law, endeavour to supply or supplement the place of the parents, regardless of their marital status.

Should this amendment be passed, and I sincerely hope it will be at the earliest opportunity, I expect the State will honour its new constitutional responsibilities by providing adequate resources to ensure that children's rights are protected, that social workers are available around the clock and that children in the State's care are placed in secure foster homes, where possible, and not dumped casually in hostels or bed and breakfast accommodation.

In recent times we have encountered a catalogue of horrors when it comes to child abuse. The first scandal to emerge concerned the church. It emerged that children in industrial institutions and in residential care had been abused by some clergy for decades. The State has faced up to some of its responsibilities in this context by establishing a compensation fund for some of those victims, yet it continues to dodge its responsibilities when it comes to educational settings. The Murphy report revealed a litany of abuse in educational settings, including in my own constituency. I have repeatedly referred in this House to abuse in primary schools. Although the State continues to be the paymaster of teachers and those who have been shown by the courts to have abused young children in care, it washes its hands of responsibility, sheltering under a legal loophole that allows it to blame the shallow-pocketed boards of management rather than acknowledge its own culpability.

If we are truly to protect and cherish children's rights, the legal position that allows the State to pick and choose what it takes responsibility for in educational contexts must be closed.

I wish to refer to the closing comments of the Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, who acknowledged the report and its all-party content. We now await the date or the machinery to facilitate the referendum. As a Member of the House, I and others would be most disappointed if the momentum which has now been gathered on the publication of the committee's report is lost. The momentum must give rise to a situation whereby the referendum Bill is introduced at the earliest opportunity. We should hold the constitutional referendum in the summer, at the earliest. It should take place by September or October at the latest. A commitment must be forthcoming from the Government, which I ask for at the end of this debate, on when this important constitutional referendum will be held.

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