Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to the Bill. This debate is the start of a national debate on the issue in the context of the upcoming referendum on 10 November. It is disappointing, therefore, that it is not getting the broader coverage that it deserves. If one listened to many of the contributions to the debate, as I have done, they were all hugely relevant to the issues that we need to discuss, both in the context of the upcoming budget, as well as the referendum, and the broader agenda around the programme for change for children which the Government is advocating. We have Members who are genuinely representative of all sections of society. Some have been foster parents, some have brothers and sisters who have been adopted or had brother and sisters in foster care, while others have been social workers. Therefore, there is a broad range of experiences and a real commitment to this issue that deserves to be understood and covered in informing the broader public debate on it. It is unfortunate that we have not had that space in recent days, given the coverage of other political scandals which are not as relevant in any sense to the common good as this debate is.

I congratulate my colleague, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald. From the very outset, the fact that the Taoiseach chose to appoint a Minister for Children and Youth Affairs was a statement of intent that we wanted to do something real in terms of the programme for Government. The choice of Minister was also a statement of intent, as the Minister has been a fearless advocate for women's rights. When our term in government is being assessed, some of the fundamental changes delivered will have stemmed from this new Department, as time will show.

I am pleased that all parties in the House have chosen to welcome what we are trying to do in the referendum. This is about shifting fundamentally the legal framework and protection provided under the Constitution since its inception to balance the rights of families and those of parents and children in their own right. This should have happened before and I am glad it is happening now. When the Constitution was written, the attitude towards the family and the support provided through the family for children were very different. This is about the modernisation of the Constitution to learn from the shameful mistakes made which resulted in the tragedies to which Deputies Dessie Ellis and Brian Stanley referred and which, to be honest, were preventable. They are a scar on the history of a country that makes very strong statements on cherishing children in various contributions.

What we are trying to do is to strike a difficult balance and put a wording together in order that we can, first and foremost, provide clarity for judges who need to make difficult and sensitive decisions and also give direction to social workers who face extraordinarily complex problems. We also want to prioritise the rights of an innocent child in that decision-making process and in the legal determination of whether we should intervene decide how supports should be provided and how we can balance people's rights, often in very emotive and difficult situations for both parents and children, in making life changing decisions and interventions that the State has a responsibility to make but has failed to make in the past, with tragic consequences. In many ways, this failure has been supported by the legal system, which is why it is so important to change the Constitution, rather than try to deal with this issue through primary legislation. Of course, what we are doing in the Constitution needs to be backed up with primary legislation, which is exactly what is happening by way of the Adoption (Amendment) Bill that the Minister has published and introduced.

It is, of course, possible to make a strong case that we should be doing more in regard to the wording of the amendment. However, this is about trying to meet the need for clarity in the Constitution to give priority to a vulnerable child while at the same time recognising the role of legislation to back it up and providing for all of the other rights that I know Deputies are seeking for children and backing this up through the decision-making process at budget time and other times of the year in order that we deal with the level of child poverty in Ireland, as highlighted by Members in graphic detail.

It is the responsibility of Government to do all of those things. Colleagues on both sides of the House should not expect to achieve them through a wording for a constitutional change. This is about a provision in our Constitution that gives clear direction to judges and policy makers in terms of what they need to do. That needs to be followed up by other actions from Government and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, including drafting primary legislation to solidify, clarify and give details of the rights we need to protect for children. The Government must also back that up - at a very difficult and tight time from a budgetary point of view, when Ministers are operating under expenditure ceilings, which is not something we are used to - by finding a way to prioritise and allocate resources. As far as possible, we must be consistent in what we are doing in terms of the legislation we are introducing and, indeed, the wording we are advocating that the public in Ireland support on 10 November.

As a number of speakers have already mentioned, approximately 30,000 cases of concern about the welfare and vulnerability of children are reported each year. That is a large number of cases and we need both the resources and the legal framework to be able to deal with them as effectively as possible. We need to make difficult judgments with regard to legislation, including, for example, on the role of foster parents, to try to facilitate the transition for children from foster care into long-term adoption. In this way, vulnerable children who have been failed by their parents over a long and measurable period can have the benefit of a stable, loving and lasting relationship within a family structure. That has not been catered for in law to date. As a result, we have seen cases in which foster parents who desperately wanted to adopt children they loved were prevented from doing so. At the same time, we need to balance the obligation towards the child in such a situation with the rights of parents who may turn their lives around and try to take responsibility for their children again, having done that with the support and care of social workers and the State. It is a difficult balancing act, but I am pleased that the parties in the House have decided to support what we are trying to do. I hope we will have the kind of public debate that is needed in the build-up to 10 November so that we can get a result that will have a lasting benefit for vulnerable children across the country.

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