Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Members of the House who have engaged so energetically in the debate on the amendment I am proposing. Right across the political divide, there has been enthusiastic support for this amendment and it is obvious that much thought and analysis has been given to the amendment by Members.

I value the cross-party and Independent support that has been shown in this House for the amendment. That will be important in the weeks ahead leading up to the vote. It is important that we all work together to ensure that the people have the information and understand precisely what is and is not in this amendment, and there is quite a job to be done on that.

A number of points have been made about the media. Certainly, many of the speeches made here were deserving of attention, through the media, to the public. There was a wide variation in what Members said. They brought their political and personal experience to bear on their speeches here and there were significant insights shared by Members who had personal experience of adoption, fostering and complex child care cases, and all of that is important in informing public opinion.

I thank everybody who has been involved in the debate, particularly the spokespersons. The spokesperson for Sinn Féin, Deputy Ó Caoláin played a significant role in the cross-party committee and has been very involved in all of the detail of this over a number of years. We already talked about the wide range of people who have been involved in the development of this work, and ensuring that this becomes centre stage, and I repeat my thanks to that group. I also want to mention the Attorney General and her staff for the significant commitment, dedication and time which they have given in the preparation of the Bill, in the analysis of how we could manage the various aspects of it that we wanted to highlight, and in the interaction between those and other parts of the Constitution. There was a considerable amount of work involved in getting to this point, and I pay tribute to them. I also pay tribute to the tireless commitment from the staff of my Department. They placed a significant focus on this in addition to the wide range of other work that they have done and the tasks involved, in the first instance in setting up the Department over the past year and a half.

We all are conscious in this House of the many NGOs who have been involved in this, such as the Campaign for Children, Barnardos, ISPCC, and the many individuals who, by their personal testimony of their own experiences in Ireland, highlighted the need to put children more central and to have a better response from the State than there has been over the past 20 years.

People have also recognised that the Bill is in no way a threat to the family. It neither lessens the recognition given to the family under the Constitution nor alters the rights or duties of parents to care for or educate their children as is enshrined in the Constitution. It is about recognising children in their own right, protecting them from abuse and neglect and providing that the rights and protections set out in the amendment apply equally to all children regardless of the marital status of their parents.

I hope that children, and this amendment, will be at the heart of the political debate over the next number of weeks. I encourage a full and frank debate on enshrining the rights of the nation's children in the Constitution. I am sure that with the support of Members in this House any fears that citizens might have will be allayed in the course of the debate.

I am very grateful for the commitment voiced by so many in this House that they intend to ensure people understand this amendment and its provisions and to play their part in ensuring it is understood. We have a collective responsibility to ensure the children of this country are cared for and protected and to ensure they are at the heart of the Constitution and at the heart of all the other decisions we take.

I accept the point made by many Deputies that the Constitution is just one aspect of our care for children. Clearly, the legislation we pass and the resources we allocate tell us a lot about the values we hold as a society and about how we want to treat children and families. This is challenging, especially given the economic situation. Even when we had far more resources, many of the changes which should have been introduced were not. Many of the national policies that should have been developed and delivered were not. This is an ongoing task and constitutional reform is just one aspect of it. If we can say and do the right thing in our Constitution, this will have an important and critical impact on other areas. If we can place children centrally in the Constitution, this puts an onus on us as Deputies to analyse and debate the range of issues mentioned during the course of this debate. The issue of resources is part of that.

Under the Constitution as it stands, children enjoy the same rights as all citizens of the State. However, the needs of children are different from those of adults. The 31st amendment recognises these differences. This referendum is a chance to create fundamental change in how we treat children. I thank everyone who has contributed over the years to us arriving at this point and everyone who has contributed to this debate in the Dáil.

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