'No' campaign warns on referendum

No campaigners in the children’s rights referendum have said a Yes vote would result in a “mini troika” in every home in the State.

Richard Greene of the Christian Solidarity Party said parents’ authority over the teenagers would be diminished if the proposed constitutional amendment was passed.

“The real agenda is to dismantle parents’ authority to protect their children, especially teenagers, and to increase State control…it could see the law deciding, for example, how far parents may monitor text messages or internet use to protect their children from bullying,” Mr Greene said.

“Never before have parents willingly given the State such huge powers to intervene in family life – a mini troika in every home.”

Mr Greene was joined by Maria Mhic Mheanmain of Parents for Children, Joe Burns of the Alliance of Parents Against the State and solicitor Malachy Steenson.

Meanwhile, foster parents have reacted angrily to columnist John Waters' suggestion that money was part of their motivation for taking children into their care.

The Irish Foster Care Association’s patron former Supreme Court judge Catherine McGuinness said she disagreed strongly with Mr Waters’stance during a press conference in Dublin this morning.

“In my personal experience, the very idea that foster parents are doing it for the money is extraordinary. It’s kind of hard to believe that anyone would suggest that,” Ms McGuinness said.

The association’s chief executive Diarmuid Kearney said: “How dare John Waters suggest that they are doing it for the money. How dare he.”