Alex White (Labour)

In regard to the Ryan commission report, has a suggestion I made to the Leader yesterday been considered by him? Will he revert to me in respect of the redress board and aggravated damages which could be paid to persons who have appeared before it?

Senator Twomey touched on the aftermath of the Ryan report and the debate taking place. Since the publication of the report, many people have called for the immediate inclusion in the Constitution of a provision in respect of children's rights. I very much support that call. I am a member of the all-party Oireachtas committee dealing with that question and I imagine that in the coming months, that call will be on the top of the agenda of that committee.

Let nobody believe, in this House or anywhere else, that all these issues belong in the past or can be dealt with purely in retrospect. If we are genuinely to change our Constitution and place the rights of children at the heart of it, we will come up against political forces and others in our society who hold fast to the notion that we cannot change, or alter in any way, the centrality of the family in the Constitution and that children's rights should be mediated only through their membership of families. That is the constitutional order in this country. All the issues which relate to intervention, whether by social workers or the State, in families or in situations involving child welfare come up against that central constitutional fact in regard to the rights of the family and the centrality of the family in the Constitution.

I am not saying we cannot include a clause in the Constitution which would sit reasonably comfortably in it. However, let nobody believe this is an argument about the past. Questions about the rights of children arise in the context of the Ryan report on the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and those questions will inevitably cause controversy and contention across communities and society. I invite people to begin looking at the responses they may have to the debate which must take place in the aftermath of the Ryan report.

Will the Leader arrange a debate on issues relating to Dublin and the wider Dublin area? I am prompted to ask for such a debate by the publication yesterday of an interesting report by the Futures Academy, setting out various options and scenarios in terms of the growth of Dublin city and the greater Dublin area. This is an issue that comes in and out of public debate, whether in regard to the Government's so-called decentralisation proposal, the question of a directly elected major or the question of integrated public transport systems. What is our vision for the future of Dublin city and the greater Dublin area? We should debate these issues in this House. Perhaps the publication of this interesting report, as outlined in today's newspapers, could act as a starting point for that debate.