Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Government does not seem to give issues relating to child protection a high priority. The Ombudsman for Children pointed out in yesterday's report that the HSE has failed to properly implement child safety guidelines over the past decade, leaving children at risk of abuse. The first of the reports to which the Taoiseach refers, which was published in September 2008, recommended legislation to deal with what was called soft information for child protection. At the time that report was published, the idea was that the legislation would be introduced in the autumn of 2008. We are now well into 2010 and, according to the Government's list of legislation, the heads of the Bill have not even been considered yet.

The third report from the committee chaired by Deputy Mary O'Rourke, which was published in February of this year, recommends a referendum to enshrine the rights of children in the Constitution and contains an agreed wording for the referendum. All expectation had been that the referendum would take place in 2010, but the Taoiseach does not yet appear to be in a position to state whether it will take place this year.

We have been kicking the issue of a referendum back and forth with the Taoiseach for a number of weeks. Will there or will there not be a referendum on the rights of children, based on the recommendation of the all-party committee, in 2010?

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