Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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311. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the extent to which children’s rights continue to be maintained in accordance with the children’s rights referendum and subsequent legislation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43875/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Children's rights, and their enjoyment of these rights, are of paramount importance to me, and indeed across Government. The importance of child-centred policies and protections represent a core value in society where children can flourish and see a brighter future.

Ireland remains firmly committed to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), a major international human rights treaty that sets out the specific rights of children. The UNCRC was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 and Ireland ratified it in 1992.

The UNCRC has four key principles:

• all the rights guaranteed by the Convention must be available to all children without discrimination of any kind (Article 2);

• the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children (Article 3);

• every child has the right to life, survival and development (Article 6); and

• the child’s views must be considered and taken into account in all matters affecting him or her (Article 12).

The articles of the UNCRC are wide-ranging and cover a number of areas including health, housing, social security, education, leisure and play, child protection and welfare, criminal justice, international protection as well as access to information and participation in decision-making. Ireland is required to submit regular state reports on measures it has taken to progress the implementation of rights under the Convention, with the most recent report submitted in February 2022.

In January 2023, I led the State delegation for an oral examination before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on Ireland's combined 5th and 6th State Report and the Committee provided its concluding observations in February 2023.

One of the recommendations of the Committee was that Ireland “fully incorporate the Convention into national legislation, conduct a comprehensive review of all its legislation to align it with the Convention.” A legislative review has been commissioned to address this and will be published in early 2025.

Young Ireland: the National Policy Framework for Children and Young People 2023-2028 was written with the UNCRC’s Concluding Observations in mind, and responds to many of its recommendations. The UN’s recommendation for “a unifying, comprehensive and rights-based national strategy, rooted in the Convention” informed the need for a specific policy framework to promote the rights of children and young people. Young Ireland sets out work to create an environment to ensure that children and young people are a central part of everyone’s agenda, including spotlights to focus on the most significant challenges for children and young people, and identifies areas for new actions across Government.

The Government is also firmly committed to ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Following enactment of several legislative measures necessary to ensure that Ireland is in compliance with the obligations of the Optional Protocol, including the recent Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Human Trafficking) Act 2024, officials in my Department will be working with the Attorney General’s Office on the next steps to ensure readiness across all relevant Departments.

The holding of a Referendum on children's rights was an important commitment of the Government. As you are aware, the 31st Amendment, inserting Article 42A into the Constitution was signed into law on 28th April 2015. The fact that the Amendment now stands as part of our Constitution represents a considerable and symbolic advance in the identification of children as individual rights holders in our country.