Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As chairperson of the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, I pay tribute to the Minister, her officials and her team for bringing this Bill to the House to have a constitutional referendum to go before the people.

I wholeheartedly commend Deputies Ó Caoláin and Troy and indeed Deputy McConalogue who, in the committee and in their work here in this House, have shown the ability of cross-party support to ensure that we put a referendum to the people which enjoys the support of the House. It is to their credit that they have come on board as well.

This Minister has shown that, after 17 reports and 20 years, we now have a referendum to go to the people. It is incumbent on all of us that we campaign to ensure that we never have to revisit where we are today, that we put the rights of children first and that Deputy Boyd Barrett put his sword back in his scabbard so we can have support for this referendum. There is an issue to be addressed here. It behoves all of us to ensure that, in the political crossfire, children never again get lost because for too long they have been lost.

We have a Minister who, with her colleagues in this House, I hope united, is going to the people to ensure that there is never a generation of children such as those who are now adults who have been forced to be in the situation they are in. That is our task for the next seven weeks, to ensure that we get this referendum passed so we need never come back here again.

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