Ivana Bacik (Independent)

As Senator O'Brien noted, we now need to know there will be commitment to open the hospital by 2015. This is very much contingent on funding, as we all know. The original plan had envisaged a substantial amount of funding would be sourced from private benefactors but there is a large question mark over that now, quite apart from the issue of Government funding.

In the context of the children's hospital, I pay tribute to TG4 which broadcast a remarkable documentary about Dr. Kathleen Lynn some weeks ago. Much of the programme was devoted to the difficulty she had in establishing a children's hospital according to enlightened and progressive principles many decades ago. It is unfortunate that we have had such a protracted debate over the siting of the new and much needed national children's hospital.

I call for a debate on children's rights. We have talked previously about the children's rights referendum. It would be useful to have the Minister for Children in the House to hear more about the proposed timeframe for the referendum. We had national play day on Sunday and one of the rights recognised in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is the right of children to play. It is hugely important in every culture and is one of the things we should examine in the context of the wording of a children's rights referendum.

I congratulate Senator Martin McAleese who has been appointed by the Government to chair the inquiry into the Magdalene laundries. That is a worthy appointment-----