Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I heard Deputy Brendan Howlin on the radio this morning talking about the children's rights amendment. I am not opposed to a children's rights amendment. Anything that strengthens the position of children in our Constitution would be welcome. The matter needs to be debated, however. It needs to be made clear that the Constitution currently guarantees the personal rights of the child. While it would not be a problem to clarify or strengthen certain aspects of that, we need to be very precise about what we seek to achieve. It is not enough to seek to change the Constitution in order to make some big statement. If the traceable benefits of such a measure are not immediately obvious, we should question it. The child care Acts currently allow hundreds of children to be taken into care each year. It is obvious that the HSE and the social services are reluctant to intervene in certain situations, not because the Constitution prevents them from doing so but for various other reasons. They may be afraid of local controversies, for example. The salient point is that the law needs to be enforced. The agencies involved need to act in accordance with the powers they currently have. We must not engage in any scapegoating of our Constitution. As I have said, the Constitution as it stands rightly protects the personal rights of the child. It appropriately sits those rights in the context of the rights and duties of the family. That should be a central point. The 1996 report of the Law Reform Commission suggested that each child has the right to the care of his or her natural and biological parents, where possible. We should be espousing that principle.