Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Thomas Byrne's point on kildarestreet.com . The service is provided by a public person, namely, Daniel K. Sullivan and it is very useful and it is colourfully presented. I hope the Editor of Debates is listening in and that this matter is resolved straightaway. I hope the Cathaoirleach will ensure this is done because we need that type of outlet. I do not see why this complication has arisen and I hope it will be resolved today because they provide pen pictures of each Member and then the dialogue is very good. It is a very good service.

I commend the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, for publishing the wording for the referendum on Saturday, 10 November. It is an excellent piece of work. It is based very much on the work of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children, chaired by the former Minister, Mrs. Mary O'Rourke. The Minister was previously a member of the committee. She was generous in her recognition of the work done by the committee and by the former Minister of State, Mr. Barry Andrews. It is a good start to the campaign. We are very pleased and delighted on this side of the House. We had a parliamentary party meeting this morning and we have endorsed the wording of the referendum. The party leader and spokespersons had a briefing this morning on the referendum wording. The campaign has got off to a very good start. I am delighted that Sinn Féin is also on board in this regard because it is very important that no party would for some reason or other try to come up with a reason not to support the amendment.

Following on from what Senator Healy Eames said, when one thinks of the number of children that have been deprived of the option of being adopted since the 1937 Constitution, it is frightening to conclude that at this stage approximately 2,000 children born in wedlock cannot legally be adopted. There are many who want to be adopted and who have been fostered for years by loving foster parents but they have been deprived of the chance. That is the most fundamental part of the amendment. One would wonder why it has taken so long to address the issue, not just in recent years when much detailed work was done, but since the measure was first included in the Constitution. It was a different world and Ireland was a different country then and if people knew then what they know now they would not have allowed such a measure to go into the Constitution.

It is important that the financial resources are provided to ensure it is not just a case of fine words but that action is taken to implement the referendum when it is passed. I have no doubt the referendum will be passed on 10 November. I do not think the wording prepared by the former Minister of State, Mr. Barry Andrews, was published because it was at the end of the previous Government. The previous Government had the intention of bringing forward this constitutional amendment but it was involved in such a crisis in the financial services that it must have been pushed aside for a few months.