Sir, – Katie Dawson (September 25th) states that “since its inception the State has failed children” and she is right. However, she goes on to implicate families in this failure. In this respect she is wrong.
For the most part families, especially parents, have been champions of their children’s rights, often in the face of opposition from the State. Contrary to being “voiceless”, these children are given voice by their parents, to be met with silence by the State.
Ms Dawson and other supporters of this amendment should ponder seriously why they would ask the parents of this country to hand over responsibility for their children’s rights to a State whose past record on the treatment of children is appalling. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – John Waters’s contention (Opinion, September 21st) that the children’s rights referendum if passed, will undermine the family is as ridiculous as his contention that vindictive social workers remove children from loving families. The children’s rights referendum is long overdue and goes some way to ensuring that children who have experienced abuse, neglect and harm have a second chance at childhood.
A gaping omission in the debate is a focus on the needs of children, intrinsically linked to rights.
Attachment theory and research into the effects of abuse and neglect on child development, (developmental trauma), has proven that what children need more than anything is a nurturing psychological, emotional and legally secure relationship with a primary carer or carers. For most children this is their parent or parents.
Children in the care system usually have multiple placements, negotiate multiple relationships and are denied the secure base from which they develop their blueprint for healthy relationships and from where they draw confidence to function well in society as adults.
Traditionally and culturally in Ireland this consideration has been missing within the social and legal decision-making processes of “what constitutes the best interests of the child”. Children in State care, long-term foster care and stepchildren can wait years in an emotional, psychological and legal limbo, for permanency and adoption applications to be concluded. Current policy operates a narrow, conservative and purely legalistic view of what is in the best interests of the child. Children drift in a care system that is the antithesis of what constitutes a secure base.
Although the proposed referendum is to be welcomed, John Waters is correct when he contends that how policy develops will depend on the interpretation of the law by those responsible for determining what is in the child’s best interests.
We can only hope for an interpretation that is enlightened and informed to ensure that all children in Ireland enjoy a safe and secure childhood and the opportunity to fulfil their potential. It is the least our children deserve. – Yours, etc,