The referendum Bertie Ahern would rather forget squandered five years' political energy only to hear a resounding No. For all that time, Bertie wore his commitment to the unborn like a halo from heaven, using it as a magic wand to ward off any bad spirits who dared question his commitment to children or families.
This week a little boy forgotten by Bertie's commitments simply by virtue of being born had to go to the High Court. No peace, progress or prosperity wrapped him in love and safety during Bertie's reign. His mother is an alcoholic; his father lives separately and won't take him in. The local kids call him smelly and, as well as being homeless and at risk of various abuses, the boy looks like he had scabies.
Awful stories about children don't fit with Bertie's image, so his Government takes refuge in denial. They say they've done better by children, introduced more legislation and capped it off with the Children's Ombudsman passed by the Dáil this week.
It's a measure of the culture of dependency around the issue that one tends to doff the cap and say thanks, in relief. Something is better than nothing, when so much needs to be done.
Welcome as the Ombudsman legislation is as a start, its chance of reaching such children as the 10-year old boy in the High Court is that of rich men getting to heaven and camels passing through a needle's eye. It acts as though the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child never existed. Not only is the word "protection" completely omitted from the Ombudsman's responsibilities, it is actually excluded in favour of privileging the same old systems that failed in the past.
The legislation promotes an elitist view of children by excluding children in custody and children in the asylum-seeking process, two of the State's most politically sensitive and troublesome areas. The dynamics of this section need time to be appreciated. Ireland is currently awaiting a final judgment from the European Court of Human Rights because of its record on putting children into unsafe places such as the Central Mental Hospital when they are neither old enough, bold enough nor insane enough to be there.
If the judgment goes against the State, as looks likely, the Ombudsman will be unable to talk about it, advocate measures for change or make recommendations. Between this and the Supreme Court's Christmas ruling, which effectively silenced Mr Justice Peter Kelly, the State can rest assured it has cut off all chances of advocacy at the knees.
It's logical rather than cynical to conclude that this legislation was finally allowed through because it causes no one inconvenience, no one who really matters, that is. It will not rock the various boats, yachts and cruise liners who sail the high seas of child welfare, protection and care.
The interdepartmental committee set up two years ago to co-ordinate strategy across three Government Departments can rest assured it will be able to meet on the same infrequent basis and ensure its ministers are not called to account by a campaigning judge or Ombudsman. Round and Round the Mulberry Bush, they'll sing the same old song.
Bertie Ahern wants to talk up the phrase "a golden age" into the media and history books. You'd need a brass neck to call the last five years a golden age in this respect. Bertie's cliché will probably get louder and louder as children fall further down the agenda over the next three weeks, as he and Mary Hanafin, his junior Minister for Children, maximise photo-opportunities with babies who don't have scabies or parents who don't threaten to leave their children in a car-park when a social worker refuses to take them in.
While they do, deputies like Sean Ardagh may play more songs of denial by suggesting that we export the problem of juvenile delinquents to Northern Ireland, as Stephen Collins reported in the Sunday Tribune this week. Did anyone consult David Trimble? Ursula Kilkelly's report on custodial homes such as Lisnevin and Rathgael was published less than a month ago, but no one who matters appears to have taken on board its findings that Northern Ireland needs to look seriously at its shortcomings, too.
The very idea of exporting our problems to Northern Ireland or elsewhere in Britain smacks of the same old attitude that sent the children of unmarried mothers to the UK and US in the 1950s, the children of Ireland's economic cold war to work away as paddies in the 1960s, and witnesses now the daily export of women with crisis pregnancies.
Children at risk are falling off the agenda because the challenges are treated as cosmetic and the solutions as too basic to ponder. Left or right of the political spectrum, this is a time-bomb. Right of centre, the picture is of a growing underclass who will do real damage to the people who matter if their exclusion persists. Left of centre, too many hopes and possibilities are losing out or lost.
Children need a seat at the Cabinet table and enough respect to be taken seriously. This week, Ahern's reign in Government tossed them all some dime-and-nickel politics: symbolically, his parliamentary schedule ended with an act that put children last.