Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There is no doubt that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, her team and many of those who worked on bringing the Bill forward and getting it to the point where a referendum will be passed to enshrine the rights of children in the Constitution deserve congratulations and credit. I am happy to say as much not only here but during the course of the campaign. We should give credit where credit is due. In so far as we will be campaigning for a "Yes" vote in the referendum, we will say it is a positive development that the rights of the child are specifically and explicitly enshrined in the Constitution and that they will be prioritised in the consideration of difficult situations and in areas in which there might be a conflict between family rights, also enshrined in the Constitution, and the rights of the child. The removal of the impediment to married couples voluntarily giving their children up for adoption is sensible and overdue. All of these are positive changes.

The fact that children's rights will be explicitly enshrined in the Constitution raises the bar generally for us and for society. They will feature in any matters that we are dealing with in terms of our society as a whole and the issues we confront, including economic and social issues. The question of children's rights and the welfare and protection of children will now feature more highly and the recognition of these rights will be an imperative for all of us when we try to deal with the difficult challenges that we face in our society.

I have no difficulty in being positive about the Bill and the constitutional amendment and I do not imagine there will be any great difficulty getting it passed. However, we should not be too self-congratulatory. In so far as there will be a concern among the public, let us be honest about what that concern will be. The concern, which I share, is that it is all very well giving legal rights to children and having an aspiration to protect and vindicate the rights of children, but where are the resources to back this up? People will maintain that many of the resources that would protect children and prevent them and their families from getting into difficult circumstances in the first place are currently being taken away. No one will have to make this point to people because it will occur to them anyway. When special needs provision is being capped, when care allowances are being more tightly distributed or held back, when there are cuts in education, when there is a failure to deal with the housing crisis, when the incomes of the less well off are being further cut and when we fail to deal with unemployment, the rights of children - whatever we may say in the Constitution or in law - are in fact and in reality being undermined. This is what the people will say and this is what they believe. Deputy Buttimer can shake his head all he wishes, but the fact is that, although not exclusively, the vast majority of children who have suffered abuse, neglect, exploitation and whatever other misfortunes have been visited upon children over many decades in this State have been children of the less well off in society. That is a fact and it will continue to be a fact. We must deal with this fact and with the underlying causes, including neglect and abuse and the things that contribute to these - mental illness among parents, family breakdown and so on. Significant social and economic factors contribute to these things. These are not the only factors but they are the greatest contributing factors to such situations.

While we are moving in a positive direction in a legislative sense and constitutionally with this Bill and with the amendment, in terms of practical policy we are moving in the opposite direction. We are undermining the supports and taking away the resources that would truly guarantee and vindicate the rights of children and their families, and instead, we are creating conditions which could lead more children and more families into trouble and difficulty.

I am unsure whether the Minister has ever seen a brilliant and shocking film by Ken Loach called "Ladybird, Ladybird", which contains harrowing scenes in which social services take children away from a very poor and troubled woman. If parents are left in poverty and destitute and if they are not provided with the support they need, they and their children can get in trouble. Consequently, the State can come in and take their children away because they have failed in their duty. However, this is not because they wanted to fail or were destined to fail but because the resources were not available to allow them to do what they wanted to do or to act as the parents they wanted to be.

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