Ireland Issues Final Report on Constitutional Amendment on Children

The Irish Oireachtas (Parliament) has been languishing over a Constitutional Referendum on Children over the last 2 years. Over the last decade a number of milestones have been achieved to safe guard the rights of children in Ireland including the publication of the Towards Redress and Recovery – The Ryan Report , by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in 2002 and the Report by Commission of Investigation into Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin (also known as the Murphy Report) in July 2009, and now the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children has now issued its final report.
In her foreword to the report, the committee chairwoman, Mary O’Rourke, TD,
stated;

“…since it began its work just over two years ago, the sole objective of the Committee has been to ensure the strongest protection of the rights of children and to further their best interests.”

Across Ireland the question being asked is whether the Committee has, in
fact, achieved their objective after their two year deliberation on the
proposed Article 42(A).1–4 set out in the Twenty-eighth Amendment to the Constitution Bill 2007.

Debate over the draft wording for the constitutional amendment on the
child set out in the final report has been heavily debated over the past two
years by the government and public alike, especially in perseverance of the
Ireland’s compliance to their obligations as a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The report itself makes a clear distinction that the committee is well aware that as it currently stands the Irish Constitution and legal framework are out of kilter with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, stating;

‘our laws and services for children should be in accordance with the State’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’.

The debate is complex, therefore I will not go heavily into the various
aspects of the amendment, or enter into the debate itself, however for more information on the specific amendments and the following debate please see the Human Rights in Ireland blog, which has an extensive analysis here.

Regardless of the debate, and any failings or inadequacies, the amendment
brings with it a number of improvements in the protection of children’s rights
in the country.

For more information and view points on the referendum please see the
following organizations who directly work for the protection of children’s
rights in Ireland; Office of the Mister for Children, Children’s Rights Alliance, Ombudsman for Children and Barnardos Ireland.