Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

At last night's meeting I made the point that the question of financial resources should be checked because the issues that arise are quite considerable. If one were to look at what areas identified initially would require new legislation, it is not an exhaustive list. Legislation on adoption would need to be published in advance of a referendum so that there would be a detailed understanding of what is proposed. Legislation is required regarding the rights of fathers in non-marital families, which would require amendment of guardianship, adoption and family law legislation. The explicit duty placed upon the State to provide care and protection to children would require extensive amendment to Child Care Acts, including, for example, the Child Care Bill currently going through the Oireachtas if one were to take the wording as it stands at the moment. The Government needs to come to a decision based on legal and other advice on the scope. We do not want to end up with judges making allocations of resources. The separation of powers must be respected. We need to ensure we introduce something that will acknowledge the rights of children and the scope of that taking into account all the implications. That work is ongoing.

In adoption, the current focus on the best interests of the child would be changed to a focus on continuity of care, which could become paramount for the consideration of adoption decisions based on the wording we have at the moment. Is that what we want? If a right to continuity of care became the paramount duty, over and above the best interests of the child, a child could be left in an abusive or neglected situation. That would be a very unintended consequence of what we are talking about. If we gave constitutional status to continuity of care, how would that relate to inter-country adoption? These are very complex and difficult issues. That is only one area that arises.

Looking at the wording itself, there is a lot of detailed work to be undertaken with some of the wording that is put forward. That is work in progress. I am not being definitive about this. I am just trying to give an indication to the House of some of the issues that arise when one gets into the details of what is proposed.

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