Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this debate and commend the Minister for the work she had done to reach this point. I also welcome the Government's decision to hold the referendum on a Saturday. I hope it is one that will hold for future votes. I had a discussion at the weekend with a highly aggrieved eight year old who wanted to know the reason we were holding a referendum for children and the reason she was not getting a day off school. Not everyone can win.

A narrative is emerging on the benches opposite, generally from newer Deputies, that nothing was done before the Minister's appointment and that she did all the work on this issue in the past 18 months. While I accept that she has done considerable work, this narrative ignores the work of previous Ministers, including the former Minister of State, Mr. Barry Andrews; our late and much missed colleague, Brian Lenihan; the former Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Brendan Smith, and the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children, on which I served for several months in the previous Dáil. As an aside, that cross-party committee which was chaired by our former colleague, Ms Mary O'Rourke, showed how a committee of the Houses could work. It was well chaired and supported, properly resourced and its members had access to all the legal expertise members required. As we struggle to find models for parliamentary committees following last year's referendum, we would do well to examine the way in which it operated. The emphasis on trying to achieve cross-party consensus on this issue was the reason it took so long to hold the referendum. However, alongside the process on the constitutional amendment, significant legislation was implemented in many areas and substantial investment was made in physical infrastructure for children, including community child care facilities. The subtle narrative that the Minister has waved a magic wand and suddenly transformed everything is wrong and unfair to those who served previously in the House.

It was extraordinary how much time the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children devoted to definitions of specific words. As someone who is not a lawyer, I noted the passion with which legal experts discussed words which laypersons believed to have the same meaning. Lawyers have an amazing skill to ascribe to one word many meanings which were probably never intended in the English language. The great thing about the referendum on 10 November is that the lawyers and, to a certain extent, legislators will have to step aside and allow children to step forward and finally have their day out. However, we owe children and for this reason we, as legislators, cannot fully step back. It would be wrong to believe the task of protecting children will be done and dusted when or if the referendum is passed.

During the contributions of the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, I reflected on how we would engage members of the public in the debate on the referendum. During the years people were shocked to the core by many of the reports published on individual cases such as the death of Kelly Fitzgerald. One of the difficulties we face is that, having been engaged and horrified by the many cases of neglect and institutional support that emerged in the past, people appear to believe the problem has gone away. We need to remind them that children in these cases were mistreated or abandoned by their families under the watch of the State. For this reason, we must do everything possible, including passing this constitutional amendment, to ensure we do not wake up some morning to read similar reports in the newspapers of institutional neglect.

It would be remiss of us not to acknowledge that during this time of much neglect and people dropping balls, there were many heroes within the system. There were many social workers who tried to battle lack of resources and, more important, a legal system which did not help them do their jobs. There were many who stood up to the plate, some of whom paid with their jobs. There were the foster families who will, for once and for all, get some sort of certainty because of this referendum. Deputy Durkan put his finger on their amazing work by stating they did it in uncertain circumstances. These families provided safety, a home and the security of the family unit to many children. I have read stories of foster parents who had up to 1,000 children go through their families over the years. These are the heroes during this time.

There were also many people who stood forward to be advocates in many of the non-governmental organisations, NGOs, like Mr. Geoffrey Shannon who has been a persistent and consistent advocate for children's rights. For those concerned that this referendum may open up the care system and push more children into care, Mr. Geoffrey Shannon's words are important. He says it will lead to the right children going into the care system. That is the children who are lost to the system, whose rights were ignored as was the State's responsibility to them, whose health and future was destroyed because the State could not act. These are the kind of children who need to be brought into the care system. These are the children who will, if this referendum is passed, get the care and attention they need.

We will be proposing some amendments to strengthen the referendum which will be discussed with my colleague, Deputy Troy. It is interesting to watch this House unite fully behind this referendum. It is important we mobilise people in the coming weeks. The date for the referendum, 10 November, is only a short time away. It is important that the information that is needed will get to people in a cogent and understandable way. There are complex issues here and the difficulty with them is that they can be twisted to suit agendas of which we might not even have thought. Suddenly in the middle of a campaign, these could become firelighter issues. To avoid that, people need to be given proper information well ahead of 10 November.

Although the House has united behind this referendum and all suggestions are that it will be passed, it is incumbent on all of us to go out there and fight for it. We must explain it to those in our constituencies. We cannot take this referendum for granted. If we do so, we are taking those children who fell out of care and who were abandoned by the State, some of whom may not have survived that abandonment, for granted too. We owe it to those children, to their families and to those who stood up to the plate that the referendum is passed with a large turnout. It would be wrong, given all the reports we have had into the neglect of children by so many State, church and education institutions, not to. This is an opportunity to say, as a country, this is the end of such neglect and the start of something different.

If it is to be the start, then the Minister's job is not finished after 10 November. Her job then will be to ensure the wording, the ethos and the preference of this amendment are backed up by resources and social workers. We must finally resolve the issue of the on-call social worker. Children are not nine to five; their difficulties are 24 hours, seven days a week. We need a system that responds to them on that basis. I welcome the fact the Minister published the adoption legislation. It is important it is enacted and properly resourced. As Deputy Durkan, who has been in this House much longer than I have, stated, the intention is great but the difficulty is that after 10 November we will move on to the next item like the budget. It is incumbent on the Minister to ensure the necessary resources and the legislation are put in place to turn this constitutional amendment to Bunreacht na hÉireann into a practical format which will benefit people's lives. It is also incumbent on her to ensure the social workers on the ground are empowered as soon as possible. I commend the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, on her work to date but her job is only starting.

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