Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister on her introduction of the Bill. After listening to the contributions of previous speakers, I am minded to observe that probably the most important stakeholders in the debate are not those in the Chamber but the children observing proceedings in the Visitors' Gallery. The Bill we are debating is about their lives, their futures and their reality. To put the legislation in layman’s terms, it is essentially about putting children at the centre of the legislation and making law to effect the betterment of children. In many cases, life runs very smooth for people and they exist in relative bliss, but when difficulties arise the legal system can prove to be a considerable obstacle to progress in a child’s life and ensuring that a child’s best interests are served.

It is a personal honour and privilege for me to contribute to the legislation. The Government often talks about its achievements and is often criticised for its failures. However, what I personally am most proud of as a member of a Government party for four years is what we have done for children. We have put children at the centre of the Constitution through the referendum on children’s rights. It was the same Minister who is present today, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, who led the campaign on the referendum. Unfortunately, the legislation is tied up in a Supreme Court case and we must wait to give effect to it. In effect, we are recognising the rights and needs of children and putting them in the Constitution. Today, we are debating legislation concerning the introduction of a legal framework to support and recognise the different arrangements within families that are outside the norm, in order to avoid the grief, difficulty, pain and huge emotional trauma that ensues for parents and children in cases of family breakdown.

To put matters in context, the previous serious piece of legislation in the area dates back to 1964. It was the Guardianship of Infants Act. That is a long time ago. At that time, approximately 3% of children in the country were born outside the typical, traditional arrangement of a married mother and father, whereas today, of the approximately 70,000 babies that are born every year, 25,000 are born into arrangements that are different from those we consider to be traditional. That is more than one in every three children. It is high time legislation caught up with the reality of life.

I commend the contribution, effort, passion and vision brought to the Bill by the previous Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter, who had personal conviction in this area. His contribution to the lives and well-being of children constitutes a legacy that will live for a long time to come. I put on record my appreciation of his vision in bringing about the Bill, as well as my appreciation of the current Minister, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, and both Ministers' staff and advisers.

One of the first stories one learns when one goes to a Christian school is the famous story about Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus, which we have all read. Joseph was a foster father. One of the rights that will be introduced in the Bill is that a foster father can apply to become a guardian of the child in his care. I am sure Joseph would have been happy to avail of that right 2,000 years ago. That puts in context how long the story has been going on and how long the need has existed. People might think it is a modern phenomenon that families are not made up of the traditional married mother and father, but it goes back 2,000 years to Joseph the foster father.

One of the greater privileges I have had in life is to be a foster father. I happen to have the honour and privilege of sharing my home with children who for a variety of reasons are not in a position to live in their own homes with their mothers or fathers. The greatest gift my family has received from being in a position to share our home with other children is the understanding my children have that life is not black and white. They asked me at a very young age why these other children were not living with their mothers or fathers or why a particular child did not have a dad. They realised at young age that life can be very difficult and challenging and there is no exact norm or definition of "the family". It is important that legislation catch up with this. I very much welcome the provisions in the Bill that will help foster parents.

Anybody who has had the privilege and honour of dealing with children in the care of the State - I know the Minister has a background as a social worker - will agree that what is very striking is that every one of them will be drawn back to their genetic mother and will always want to go back to their birth mother and father. No matter how much love and affection is showered on them and what provisions they are given, there is a natural innate attraction in all human beings to a sense of identity - to know who they are, to know their mother and father and, ideally, to live with them. Even if these children stay in the care of the State until they are 18, as soon as they are 18 the first thing they will always want to do is to seek out and try to find their birth mother and go back to the parent, irrespective of the circumstances of that person at the time.

Many provisions in the Bill will allow children to find out who they are and who their birth mothers and fathers are. Legislation was recently passed providing that a father's name must be on a birth certificate, which is a very welcome development. A child will grow up to be a young adult and will yearn for this knowledge some day.

As Deputy Ó Cuív stated earlier, the Bill is a huge piece of work, and it will be very challenging for us as a body politic to get it right because many issues will arise in the debate. I welcome the amount of time allocated to the debate. I wholeheartedly welcome the provision for the child's voice to be heard, which has not been the case heretofore. This is one of the best elements of the Bill. It has been an aspiration and has been spoken about but is not based on law. It will be mandatory for the courts to take into account various aspects, such as domestic violence and other factors.

The appointment of court welfare officers is referred to in the Bill, and this is a very welcome development. The Cafcass officers in England are a very good example. I presume the Minister is aware of them. They are welfare officers with child qualifications appointed by the courts. The Bill does not address satisfactorily who will fund this service, or give a commitment in this regard, because it will have costs. A marriage break-up or any separation is a very costly, difficult and challenging event on many levels. A two-income household can all of a sudden become a one-income household. I would like to see the Bill be more specific and give a commitment on the part of the State to deal with funding for the appointment of court officers to cases in which the welfare of a child is an issue, so that people with child qualifications will be in place. I look forward to the Minister's response on this and would like to see all of the boxes ticked.

We legislators will not be in the courtrooms when real cases and real-life experiences will play out, and somebody will have to make a decision based on the laws we pass. I find the provision on cohabitation interesting because I am not sure how somebody will prove cohabitation if it is a matter of contention. If a parent claims to have cohabited for 12 months, three of them after the birth of the child, but the other parent disputes this, I am not sure how it will be proved. It will be up to the courts to deal with this burden of proof. Perhaps we as legislators could look ahead and make it easier for the courts by defining this more clearly. Marriage and other arrangements have a licence, and people can prove these, but I am not sure how someone can prove cohabitation if the issue arises and it is a bone of contention, as it is very likely to be in many of these cases when one parent is looking for guardianship.

I welcome the Bill and look forward to contributing further to the debate. I look forward to the Minister's response in due course to the issues I have raised.

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