According to the Irish Times, the proposed wording for a referendum on children’s rights has been unanimously agreed by the all-party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children, which will launch its final report tomorrow.
Previous entries on this blog have highlighted the long delay in the Committee producing its final report, potential shortcomings in the Committee’s approach and the failure of the Committee to proactively seek direct input from young people themselves.
The Final Report is very much to be welcomed – even if only in terms of drawing line under the protracted and apparently tortuous considerations of the Committee. However, the government’s failure to establish a definite date by which the draft wording will be put to the electorate (or even a date by which a decision will be taken as to whether or not the wording will be put to the electorate) is not.
The same Irish Times report quotes statements of Mary Hanafin on RTE’s The Week in Politics that:
We would anticipate with the election for the lord mayor of Dublin, the two byelections, in Donegal and Dublin South and possibly also at least one constitutional referendum … We have also promised in the programme for Government that there would be a constitutional referendum on a court of civil appeal. So all of those should probably take place, if they are to take place, around the same time and that certainly won’t be until the back end of the year. [Italics added]
She went on to make it clear that the government did not envisage that any referendum on the proposed amendment would take place before the autumn.
It is striking, however, that another participant on the programme, Alex White, TD – who is a member of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children – intervened to say that the Committee’s report would be launched “this Tuesday” (16 February) and so “it’ll be ready to move on”.
Given that the Committee has had over two years to work on its report, as well as the fact that it can be assumed that the government is familiar both with the Comittee’s discussions and the proposed wording due to the All-Party nature of the Committee, it seems inexcusable that there should be a significant delay in putting the wording to referendum. This is particularly so given the repeated statements on the part of the Government (for instance, in its Implementation Plan in Response to the Ryan Report) that a constitution on a children’s rights amendment would go ahead once the Committee’s work would be completed. In light of the delay in addressing the wholly inadequate framework of the protection of children’s rights under the Constitution on the part of the Committee and – indeed – the Government, it is crucial that the response to the Committee’s report be prompt and concrete.
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Human Rights in Ireland 
Yet Another Delay to the Children’s Rights Constitutional Amendment?
According to the Irish Times, the proposed wording for a referendum on children’s rights has been unanimously agreed by the all-party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children, which will launch its final report tomorrow.
Previous entries on this blog have highlighted the long delay in the Committee producing its final report, potential shortcomings in the Committee’s approach and the failure of the Committee to proactively seek direct input from young people themselves.
The Final Report is very much to be welcomed – even if only in terms of drawing line under the protracted and apparently tortuous considerations of the Committee. However, the government’s failure to establish a definite date by which the draft wording will be put to the electorate (or even a date by which a decision will be taken as to whether or not the wording will be put to the electorate) is not.
The same Irish Times report quotes statements of Mary Hanafin on RTE’s The Week in Politics that:
She went on to make it clear that the government did not envisage that any referendum on the proposed amendment would take place before the autumn.
It is striking, however, that another participant on the programme, Alex White, TD – who is a member of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children – intervened to say that the Committee’s report would be launched “this Tuesday” (16 February) and so “it’ll be ready to move on”.
Given that the Committee has had over two years to work on its report, as well as the fact that it can be assumed that the government is familiar both with the Comittee’s discussions and the proposed wording due to the All-Party nature of the Committee, it seems inexcusable that there should be a significant delay in putting the wording to referendum. This is particularly so given the repeated statements on the part of the Government (for instance, in its Implementation Plan in Response to the Ryan Report) that a constitution on a children’s rights amendment would go ahead once the Committee’s work would be completed. In light of the delay in addressing the wholly inadequate framework of the protection of children’s rights under the Constitution on the part of the Committee and – indeed – the Government, it is crucial that the response to the Committee’s report be prompt and concrete.
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