Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

It is rare for three parties to agree absolutely on the course of action to be taken. We are a great country for taking absolute positions about children, whether before or after they are born, when they go to school, when they start secondary school or, as in this case, when they reach the age of majority and the State bears no further responsibility for them.

We are enacting this legislation because the State has put itself in the place of the parent. We can talk in legalistic terms about the State's responsibility, the age of majority and whether there is an after care service in some areas. There is a service in some areas and not in others. That is the difficulty we face.

We are putting legislation in place that we are unlikely to come back to in the next few years. Once again, we are abdicating responsibility for children for whom we have absolute responsibility. When I look at legislation of this sort, I ask myself what I would do if it applied to my child. How would I frame this legislation if I were framing it in order to protect my child? What would the Minister of State do if the Bill applied to his child? Would he tell his child to go because he was 18 years old and his parents were no longer responsible for him? I do not think he would.

I am a great believer in the privileged classes. There are two distinct classes. These children fall into the category of those who are not as privileged and do not have the same access as other categories of people. That is why we should be even more careful to legislate to ensure that whatever we can do will be done. It is not enough to legislate that it may be done, but that it will be done. If we are to have a referendum on the rights of the child and if we continue to talk about the child's voice being heard and the child being central to family law and child protection law, why are we still legislating to dump children out of care at 18 and not giving them after care? It is left up to the local HSE areas to decide whether to provide after care.

I live next door to an institution known as the Foyer. It has 12 self-contained apartments for children between the ages of 18 and 25 who are in danger of becoming homeless. This local authority initiative is very well run. It has hiccups from time to time, but one expects that when one is dealing with young people. There would be hiccups in one's own home also. The young people have no absolute right to that care or to live there. If they were not living there they would be on the streets. The 12 young people who live there are extraordinarily lucky. There are hundreds more who do not live there and do not have such a space.

I cannot take seriously any proposal regarding a children's referendum if we continue to legislate to ensure that people do not have a right to after care. I ask the Minister of State to go away and think about this again. When he is framing the legislation, he should ask himself if his child would be safe on the street at 18.

I always think about the children who came out of institutions up to the mid-1970s or early 1980s. I met some of them in England. When they got their feet under them at 16 they made a run for it. They got on ferries and trains in England. How did they manage to avoid the pitfalls ahead of them? They did, but only just. Those pitfalls are still there and this time we cannot use the excuse that we do not know about them. These children deserve our protection and to be protected in the same way as the Minister's children will be protected.

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