Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I am disappointed I did not have the opportunity to hear Senator Buttimer's comments but I am sure they would be fully laudatory of every aspect of the Government's performance. I thank all Senators for the valuable contribution they made. As always, it is a great pleasure and honour to be in the Seanad. I wish to mention the wide-ranging views expressed in this House and the engagement all Senators have had with what is a very important document produced in such a short period under the chairmanship of Deputy Mary O'Rourke.

To the best of my ability and in the short time available, I will address my comments to the specific issues raised. Senator Cannon spoke about trying to create a monument to past failures. That is a very fair point and one which was very much expressed in the contributions of members of the committee throughout the sittings. Senator Mary White made a point about Article 41 remaining in situ. We had a considerable amount of debate about that and were determined that it was important that the presumption that a child's place is best served in the family, which has been expressed many times in the Supreme Court as an interpretation of Article 41, would not be interfered with. What we wanted to do for the first time was to place a specific and discrete article in the Constitution that referred to children's rights and not dilute the importance of the family in a child's life and development. We were absolutely clear about that.

Senator O'Toole raised specific issues in regard to the exclusion of the word "physical" in what is described as the general education of a child. It was quite interesting that he raised that because only yesterday, Dáil na nÓg made a presentation to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children in which they expressed their disappointment that relationship and sexual education is available on the curriculum in only 27% or 28% of senior cycle schools. They found that it was generally associated with religion teaching in so far as it was available. Senator O'Toole's points were very well made and I would say in all honesty that they had not occurred to me in our deliberations. The legal advice we received in regard to the second point was that free primary education is a constitutional obligation.

Senator Mullen made some very important points, which I respect. He articulated views widely held throughout this country, if not in this House, so one must consider them very carefully. He said the Government did not come to this argument with clean hands because of previous failures and has let children down in the past. He is right about that but that should not be used as an argument not to make an effort to improve in the future. It could be an argument for the Government to excuse itself in the future from any type of proper radical reform in the area of children's rights.

Senator Mullen referred to the concern about the phrase "children of the State". Senator Alex White also referred to this first sub-article of what is proposed. We had a wide discussion on whether this should be included. I was not aware at that time that, historically, this was supposed to refer to children in the widest sense and not just minors. The general view of the committee was, as Senator Alex White mentioned, that it should be something of a proclamation itself, aspirational as it were, in the way it is expressed.

I would say to Senator Mullen that it is absolutely the case that there is a presumption in our Constitution, which we propose to maintain, that a child's best interests are served within the family. That has been a Supreme Court interpretation of our Constitution on a number of occasions. We do not propose to dismantle that in any way.

Senator Alex White referred to the fact that this, for the first time, affords children rights in their own right. That is a very good phrase to use to describe what we sought to achieve.

Senator Butler spoke about some of the practical achievements we have made and referred to the free preschool year which was only introduced last month. It is true to say that while the Constitution represents the highest declaration of the legal position in the State, it is also by one thousand smaller things that we really give expression to children's rights. It is appropriate to refer to the progress made under various programmes introduced by the Government over past ten to 15 years.

Senator Fitzgerald spoke about the consensus achieved by the committee in such a short period, which I acknowledge. I submit that may have had much to do with the fact that committee meetings were held in private for the most part. It allowed everyone to proceed in perhaps a much more frank way than would ordinarily be the case and, on my part as a Government representative, perhaps in a less defensive way. It is an excellent piece of work and great credit is due to the Chairman, Deputy Mary O'Rourke.

I would argue a little with what Senator Fitzgerald said about the Murphy and Ryan reports. I deliberately had not associated this proposal with the failures in regard to clerical child sexual abuse because it is not about church-State relations but about families, individuals and children, regardless of religious issues. I would not put it in the context of a church-State type of argument, on the contrary. I am not saying that is the way the Senator describes it. I deliberately avoided saying we had our failures in the past in regard to clerical child abuse and, therefore, we should vote for this. It would be unfair and unwise to try to limit it to that.

Let us not forget that 90% of child sexual abuse is carried out by family members. That is as much as we need to know when we talk about the Murphy and Ryan reports. It is about a lot more and it is more significant than that.