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

I may not use all of them which the Acting Chairman will probably be glad to know.

I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Katherine Zappone, on her new post. She is taking on an important portfolio, that of children and youth affairs. While I may have my doubts about the capacity of her allies to deliver for children and youth, I wish her the best of luck in trying to do so. I must apologise, as I will not be able to stay for the full duration of the debate. I must speak at a public meeting about James Connolly that I committed to a number of weeks ago.

Mentioning Connolly makes me think about one of the lines in the 1916 Proclamation that was almost certainly inputted by Connolly and his cohort in the movement that led the Rising, namely, the imperative that we cherish all of the children equally. Connolly would approve of the general thrust of this Bill in so far as it is trying to modernise the law to move us a little closer to equality on a number of fronts and towards placing the rights of children centre stage. That is to be welcomed, as it is long overdue, but we will still have a long way to go after passing the Bill if we are to vindicate the rights of children truly.

Without point scoring too much, we should say that the last Government failed pitifully to protect children. Children fared particularly badly even with the passing of the children's referendum, the most obvious example of that being the number of children who must now endure emergency homeless accommodation, which is an appalling indictment of the last Government and the entire political system. This point will be relevant to something that I want to say later in questioning aspects of the Bill.

I will start with the positives. It is undoubtedly a good move that married parents can place a child up for adoption as long as both consent. It is positive that civil partners and cohabiting couples will be treated equally and have the same rights to adopt as anyone else. This is a very progressive measure and is to be welcomed. Step-parents being able to adopt is important. The removal of the anomaly whereby the biological parent must give up the child for adoption in order for the step-parent to become a parent through adoption is a positive move. I welcome these steps.

Then we come to the passing of the Bill, the constitutional amendment on the rights of children and the right of the State to decide on whether to allow for the adoption of children without the consent of their parents. In any situation where children are being abused or neglected or where their parents are unable or unwilling to look after them properly, the rights of the child must take precedence. There is no question about that and the State has an obligation to protect children from abuse and neglect. The imperative alluded to in the legislation to listen to children in so far as they are able to articulate their views on these matters is important. The imprescriptible rights of the child as the constitutional amendment suggests are proper.

While all of this is to be welcomed, I wish to sound a few notes of concern. For whatever reason, parents may sometimes let their children down through neglect, abuse or whatever. In that situation, it is right that the State should step in but what if the State is guilty of neglect and abuse? What if the State is responsible for creating the conditions wherein parents end up neglecting their children? This is an anomaly in the objective that we are trying to achieve, namely, to protect the rights of children. Consider what is happening in Irish society and the issues that I have mentioned: homelessness, major housing problems and addiction problems that arise from deprivation, the State's neglect of particular areas, its failure to deal with poverty and inequality and its responsibility in many cases for exacerbating homelessness, poverty and deprivation to the point that they break people mentally, emotionally and physically.

How often has this arisen because of the failure of the State or the political system to intervene, as it must, to prevent the emergence of the conditions that lead parents to fail? I suggest it has happened in many cases, although not all.

A colleague has already mentioned the suggestion made by the incoming Government that it would link child benefit with school attendance. This is a really shocking proposal and Deputy Bríd Smith was the first to mention it in the House. She did so in her opening speech on the day the Government was formed because it was the point that had jumped out at her when she read the programme for Government. It is an absolutely shocking proposal that shows a complete failure to understand the difficulties some families have in getting their kids to school. Difficulties arise not because they do not want to get them to school but because of all sorts of obstacle associated with poverty and deprivation and issues concerning homelessness. One should consider the psychological and emotional impact on the children living in emergency accommodation or whose parents are pushed from pillar to post and who, on being evicted from one unsuitable, private short-term unit of rental accommodation, must move into another. They experience squalid living conditions, as is the case in much private rental accommodation, and are then evicted, whereupon they must move into emergency homeless accommodation. There are people who have been on the housing list in Dún Laoghaire for 18 years and who have, therefore, never had a sense of permanence and security of residence. What effect does this have on children? It is absolutely disastrous. How can we expect children to respect any authority of the State or a school when they must live in such intolerable conditions? This is not to mention the same effects on the parents.

The overlap between mental breakdown and homelessness is huge. I know this from those who come to my clinic who are in desperate circumstances and on the point of breakdown in many cases. They are on the point of breakdown because of their housing circumstances. It is the most basic factor.

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