Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I will ask the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Smith, to arrange for a full and detailed briefing on this matter for Deputy Shatter as Fine Gael spokesperson in this area.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by Dáil Éireann on 21 September 1992 and entered into force in Ireland on 21 October 1992. Ireland subsequently signed the European Convention on the Exercise of Children's Rights in 1996. This is intended to supplement the UN Convention by promoting the rights of children in family law proceedings. Similar to other common-law countries, Ireland has a dualist system under which international agreements to which it becomes a party are not automatically incorporated into domestic law. Two Articles of the Constitution deal with that. Article 29.3 states "Ireland accepts the generally recognised principles of international law as its rule of conduct in relations with other States". Article 29.6 provides that "No international agreement shall be part of domestic law of the State save as may be determined by the Oireachtas". The Constitutional provision has been interpreted as precluding the Irish courts from giving effect to an international agreement where this is contrary to domestic law or grants rights or imposes obligations additional to those of domestic law. Consequently, whereas Ireland has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the convention did not automatically become part of Irish law. The Deputy will be aware that a number of the rights set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are already provided for in the Constitution either expressly or implied. Others are provided for by way of legislation. However, several issues remain to be addressed.

Deputy Kenny will be aware that Deputy Brian Lenihan, as Minister of State with responsibility for children, published a proposed wording in this regard last February. We hope we can re-establish a committee of the House to examine this and the work done up to that period and subsequently try to get agreement on this, which is always better in the case of referendums. We have tried to get agreement on this over the past several years.

Deputy Kenny will recall we made a commitment earlier this year, when we decided in March or April not to press on with this issue, but to try to deal with it in 2008. It is not necessary to state when exactly in 2008 but I would like to stick to the commitment.

On the reform agenda, obviously, the Government has held discussions on the matter. I hope everybody in Government will support it. The Intergovernmental Conference appears at this stage to be on target to finish its work if not by end October then by end November. We will have to make a decision in due course on how we will ratify the reform treaty. It is reasonable to assume we will need to hold a referendum next year. I do not foresee any circumstances wherein that would not be the case.

Following the decision of the Netherlands last Thursday, it appears Ireland will be the only country to hold a referendum on this issue. From what I hear from my colleagues, all other countries will deal with the matter by way of parliamentary ratification. As Deputy Kenny stated, this means we may invite people with a counter view on the matter. Those who support such issues never seem to turn up but perhaps they will on this occasion. Everything has been done to ensure sufficient resources and staff are made available to the Forum and we will continue to do this. The Forum is doing a good job and its work within the confines of this city and elsewhere will be helpful as it has been in the past.

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