Judge calls for action on rights

THE Government has failed to enshrine in the Constitution children's rights recommended in the Kilkenny incest case report, according…

THE Government has failed to enshrine in the Constitution children's rights recommended in the Kilkenny incest case report, according to Judge Catherine McGuinness, who chaired the inquiry into the case.

Other recommendations had been enthusiastically taken on board, but no one had wanted to tackle the changes needed in the Constitution.

"In the Kilkenny report there was a recommendation that express rights for children should be included in the Constitution. While

Ia lot of our other recommendations were taken on board, this was not."

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Addressing the IPSCAN conference, she spoke about children's rights in the Irish constitutional and legal framework, comparing them to the rights set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

She said it was not just a question of ratifying a UN convention - a government then had to ensure that its provisions were brought into domestic law. "We have to move towards getting children's rights brought into statute law in the different countries. If you do not do that you cannot vindicate those rights through the courts."