Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I wish to correct a point the Taoiseach made earlier about the proposal from some voices to decouple the addressing of the spill-over from the C case from the addressing of the substantive issue of children's rights in terms of the Constitution. Sinn Féin has not given its agreement to this proposition. In fact, at the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children last week I indicated that our preference would be for both of these referendums to be held on the same day if possible. If not, I am still of the view that we should comprehensively address children's rights. This has only been reconfirmed this week by the publication of the CSO's headline statistics on crime. Under the section dealing with child abandonment, neglect and cruelty, it can be seen that this increased by 86.8% in 2007 to a total of 566 recorded cases. I do not want to overstate this, but as that crime statistic demonstrates, there are many children out there desperately and urgently in need of constitutional protection.

My great fear, understanding as I do the urgency of addressing the implications of the C case, is that this will be addressed and everything else will be put on the long finger. This is a reasonable fear because the Taoiseach has indicated previously in the House that he also had concerns on when this might be visited if it were not to be accommodated together with the C case issues in the current year, 2008. That is on the record and I reiterated it at the committee last week. Not all of the people there had the same recall as I had, but the Taoiseach will agree that this is an accurate reflection of what he said to me during previous exchanges here on the floor of the House. I ask the Taoiseach to think long and hard about the decision to decouple and to move forward on the single issue of age of consent and all of the difficulties associated with this. I understand the urgency, but there are many other areas in which children are being abused daily, not only sexually.

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