Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the discussion on the passage of a Bill that will ultimately lead to an amendment of the Constitution. I compliment the Minister on the work she has done since she took up her role at the Cabinet table. I suppose the Bill has been a long time coming, which is no reflection on the Minister. It is a long time since Mrs. Justice Catherine McGuinness said in 1993 that, from her perspective, there was a need to elevate the status of the child and enshrine certain language in the Constitution to help to strike a balance between the rights of the family and those of the child. Some have sought for political reasons to suggest there was a lack of willingness, desire or capacity on the part of previous Administrations of all hues and that they chose instead to procrastinate. I know that would not be the Minister's view, considering that she served on an all-party committee that tried to achieve consensus on the language and wording that should be used in this part of the Constitution. I pay tribute to some of those who worked with the Minister, including the late Brian Lenihan, Mrs. Mary O'Rourke and the two Ministers, Deputies Brendan Howlin and Alan Shatter. It should be recognised that the previous Minister of State in this role, Mr. Barry Andrews who sat at the Cabinet table, played an active role in trying to maintain the consensus developed at the all-party committee. The Minister has been able to pull together some of the steps he took at the time. Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin was also among those who helped to bring the process of finding a wording to a culmination. The wording set out in the Bill seems to find favour in the House. I think all sides are prepared to support and campaign on it.

It goes without saying that it is important to elevate the status of the child. It is a sad reflection on our society generally that it has taken so long to appreciate this. Our efforts to take action in this regard have been compared to our efforts to regulate the banks. However, it is not an exact analogy. By the time we eventually got banking regulation right, it was too late because the entire banking structure was in desolation. Similarly, we did not have an effective constitutional recognition of the child when it was most needed to change the thinking within society. I am reminded of the recent comments of a bishop who outlined his understanding of paedophilia while trying to explain his perspective on the decision to transfer a priest. He seemed to suggest the relationship between the priest and the individual in the case in question was no more than an inappropriate attachment between them. He did not accept, understand or realise paedophilia was completely different and that there was a depravity in the mind of the priest in question. If society had been better able to put the necessary protections in place, it would have enabled parents, teachers and others involved in the care and protection of children to use the Constitution as an appropriate means of taking action against people in certain protected sectors. In such circumstances, we would not have needed as many of the reports that have become a feature of the child sex abuse issue.

It is important that we do not lose sight of the neglect of children. When the need for this approach to the elevation of the status of the child is debated, it is often the subject of a lazy analysis driven by the child sex abuse events that have taken place. I do not believe society fully understands the abuse of children through neglect. The effects of the culmination of this are seen on a daily basis. We have certainly seen these effects in the last fortnight, when a number of people have been killed on our streets in broad daylight. Most of those who were shot at point-blank range were young family men. When one talks to people who understand child psychology, they trace these events back to neglect in people's lives when they were three, four or five years of age. Teachers will say they can see the potential for this to happen in the eyes of a child ten years before it happens. All children have a desire to feel wanted and embraced - to be part of something - but if that is not available at home or within the family structure, they will often look for it on the street, unfortunately. Children of seven, eight, nine or ten years of age have a desire to feel part of something, but they cannot feel part of a family if such a structure is non-existent, under the definition of the family in the Constitution. In such circumstances, they often fall under the control of older children and teenagers. That is how the cycle of participation in gang structures develops and evolves. Society is failing to recognise that the culmination of the neglect that has been allowed to develop is evident when young men in their early 20s shoot each other at point-blank range. What does that say to the next generation? Without getting into specifics, what does it say to children on the South Circular Road, or those in Portarlington who saw their father gunned down in front of them? If we do not protect those children and others like them, we will continue the cycle of children falling victim to the inability of the State to intervene at the most appropriate time.

The proposed amendment seeks to do a couple of important things. It seeks to treat all children in an equal manner, regardless of the marital status of their parents. It recognises the importance of giving a child from a marriage a second chance to be part of a family by allowing such children to be adopted. These two aspects of what the measure seeks to do are hugely important. Equally, it is right that we are providing for the voice of the child to be heard in court proceedings. That is probably the most important recognition of all in the Bill which elevates the status of the child. Society needs to understand the impact of neglect. As I said, we have to understand these issues extend beyond the child sex abuse that took place in various institutions, by various elements of the clergy and certain other elements of society. The enshrining of these provisions in the Constitution will not solve the problems about which we are talking until we come to grips with the neglect issue. However, I accept that it is an important backstop. As a number of speakers have said, these teams must be able to intervene in an unfettered and unconstricted way and must have the resources to do so. The continuum of neglect that leads to the lawlessness we have seen on the streets in recent weeks will not be halted until that happens.

The Minister's hand will be strengthened when the Bill has been passed and subsequently when the Constitution has been amended. She will have improved capacity to fight for scarce resources and ensure an appropriate number of social workers are available to make the interventions needed on a daily and weekly basis. When we reflect on the work of social workers, we should not under-estimate the difficult challenges they face on a daily basis as they try to balance various risks. When a child in the care of the HSE dies in tragic circumstances, there is a rush to blame the HSE and, ultimately, the social worker or other worker who had made a judgment call on that child. If one speaks to social workers, they will tell one they have to make judgment calls every hour of every day. They cannot take every child into care. Their job involves having to have to balance various risks. They have to decide whether it is better to leave a child in a semi-dysfunctional family or to take him or her out. It is a hugely difficult job. Other countries do things slightly differently. The authorities across the water are much quicker to take children out. As a result, many more children per capita are taken into care. That does not always ensure the best outcome for the child. If an episode in the life of the family has created a complication for the child, it might not be a long-term issue and might resolve itself with the appropriate level of intervention. That is why we need to ensure social workers are not over-stretched or over-burdened. They must be able to manage risk in the most appropriate way. An integral part of this will involve ensuring the new child and family welfare agency has the appropriate level of resources.

While it is easy for someone like me on the Opposition side of the House to suggest throwing more money at the problem, as if that was the solution to everything, which it is not, there are priorities which the Minister has identified. I know her heart is in this task, but she has a job of work to do at the Cabinet table to ensure others will be equally as resilient and resigned to the fact that the only solution is the provision of an appropriate level of resources. I believe the Minister can fight the case on the basis of dealing with the neglect issue and the impact it has had on the society, as well as the question of what kind of society we want in the future. Any value for money analysis will show that the need to address the negative impact of the cycle of criminality, particularly the emergence of gangland criminality, strengthens the Minister's hand in that regard.

Although I am not suggesting it as a soft solution, it must be recognised at a time when further pressures are being put on teachers, whether it be in terms of the entry grade and the reduction of their salaries and so on, that we need to encourage the brightest and best to enter the education sector to be the teachers of the future. This is the case for many reasons but, in particular, to ensure they have the broadest level of skills possible in order that they have the time to identify and assist children from neglected backgrounds.

A number of speakers referred to the mechanics of the referendum. I also welcome the fact that the referendum will be held on a Saturday.

Several speakers referred to how one will debate the issues involved in the light of the various judgments, on which there is confusion. To the best of my knowledge - I am not a legal expert - there is no specific judgment that states RTE or anyone else has to allocate 50% of the time to each side. As I understand it, this is an interpretation, in the first instance, of the Coughlan judgment in 2000 which had more to do with party political broadcasts and the allocation of an equal amount of time to political parties. Then came the McKenna judgment which was about the spending of public money on the promotion of a campaign by the State. These two judgments have allowed an interpretation by the BCI and the national broadcaster that the simplest way out, in order to ensure one does not encroach on anybody's toes, is to give a fair hearing to both sides. That probably worked in previous referendum campaigns because there was a body of people on the other side of the debate and, whether there might have a difference of opinion, it was believed that although they sometimes brought forward extraneous arguments, they were coherent and, at least, one could debate with them. The difficulty now is that, with the exception of a couple of individuals, there does not seem to be a campaign on the other side of the debate. This raises an important question that should not be left to the national broadcaster to resolve. There is a requirement for the commission which will be established, the BCI and perhaps the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, to make a judgment call on the issue. I hope some formula can be found. I have great faith in the editorial capacity of the national broadcaster. There are some very talented and bright individuals there whose judgment people would trust, whether one disagrees on some issues. It has to be left to the editorial judgment of those who work in the various media organisations to decide what is fair and reasonable in terms of the allocation of time. I worry that if this encumbrance is placed on broadcasters, they will end up not discussing the subject at all. While I will not comment on those on the other side of the debate, they are thin on the ground and one could argue there is a lack of coherence in what they are saying and what some have sought to suggest is a lot of nonsense. If broadcasters must ensure a 50:50 balance, it is possible they will decide, for the avoidance of doubt and as it is not considered to be a big issue, to move on. However, that would be a failure in terms of what the Minister has tried to do.

As I said, the solution does not lie in the passage of the Bill but in elevating the status of the child in the mind of every citizen of the State to ensure we focus in every respect on the protection of the child. This is a great opportunity to do this, to have a national debate in the coming weeks to get people discussing the issue, whether in the media or outside. It is only when it is debated on the national airwaves that it will be debated in the family home, outside the church, in the pub, at the post office and wherever people meet, greet and talk. I would be disappointed if the interpretation of the various judgments had the cumulative effect of preventing the initiation of that debate by various broadcasting organisations. I hope that, perhaps through the Minister's presence in the Cabinet and with her Cabinet colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, an appropriate mechanism will be put in place at the earliest time to ensure this happens. There is only a certain number of weeks to get this issue onto the political agenda. It would be well worth the effort on the Minister's behalf, but it is vital that this exercise is carried through in order that, when the appropriate legislation is enacted thereafter, we will ultimately have a joined-up approach across all Departments to the protection of the child. This task does not just fall to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs; it cannot be seen as if it is in a silo. It crosses the delivery of services and the enactment of legislation. That is why there is a specific role for the Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Health and all other Departments which must be mindful from now on of the visibility and interests of the child. That is also why it is wide of the mark to only talk about rights and responsibilities. The interests of the child are probably the most important aspect.

I wish the Minister well. She will, as our spokesperson on children, Deputy Robert Troy, indicated, receive the full support of the House. We will be campaigning to ensure the message gets out about the importance of the passage of the referendum and providing for the needs of children.

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