The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has expressed serious concerns about reports that the Government intends to revert to the flawed constitutional wording on children’s rights that it first published 2007.
Speaking after a private meeting with the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Barry Andrews TD yesterday afternoon (23 September 2009), ICCL Director Mr Mark Kelly said:
“It would appear that the Minister’s political courage has failed him, and that the Government will attempt to revert to the deeply-flawed and ineffective wording that it last presented to the Oireachtas in 2007. There is a pressing need effectively to transpose the best interests principles of the Convention of the Rights of the Child into our Constitution. No one who has read the Ryan Report can seriously doubt that constitutional reform to give recognition to express rights for children is long overdue.”
“If the Minister is not prepared to grant an effective voice to children, those who genuinely believe in children’s rights will not shirk their responsibilities” he concluded.