Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I accept Senator Cullinane's point that those of us who support the referendum should be comfortable debating it and dealing with any concerns. As I said yesterday a number of times - probably too many times - we have a duty to go out and inform people. They need to be informed. The referendum is only on one page and is small when compared with the 20 pages of the stability treaty. We are dealing with matters that go to the heart of people's views on children and families. People will have a strong natural response to it. We want to ensure that people understand why we are putting the wording in the Constitution, what we are putting in and what we are not putting in. Again, I agree with the point the Senator made.

I must reiterate my concern about his comments on the amendment. First, I do not believe that the amendment would achieve what the proposers intend. As I have outlined, and partly because the formulation is somewhat ambiguous and could have unintended consequences, Article 42A.1 refers to all children. The provision does not discriminate between different groups of children. It implies that all children are equal because they are all acknowledged under the article as enjoying natural and imprescriptible rights. That means it covers all of the children. We are not defining some children in particular circumstances. It is all children.

As I have said, children do enjoy a constitutional right to equality under Article 41. The interplay between it and Article 42A.1, if amended, as suggested would be unclear. As I said earlier, it is my experience from drafting the wording, and working with a range of people to arrive at it, that when one adds words and new concepts they must be used very sparingly. The reason is that we must examine the Constitution as a whole and the interplay between articles, not just in Article 42A but throughout. Therefore, one must add words sparingly and read the Constitution as a whole.

I understand the sentiment expressed by Senator Cullinane and where it comes from. As he said, the amendment has implications for other legislation. It has implications for resource allocation. It also has implications for the concept of child-proofing and I was a big proponent of equality-proofing. Both are imperfect concepts as we have all seen over the years. The amendment does not solve all of the problems when it comes to equality and child-proofing. As a concept and an approach to major decision-making in Government, policy or legislation they are lenses - certainly one of the lenses - through which we should view decisions. Obviously there is more scope for us to do that than was done previously. We are having a constitutional amendment because children have been so invisible. We did fail in terms of child-proofing decision making when it came to resources and court decision making over the years. I hope the Senator will understand that it is on that basis that I cannot accept his amendment.