The Minister for Children has said he is looking at how a statement on the rights of children could be put to the people in a constitutional referendum.
Stressing that he was speaking in a personal capacity and that the Government had made no decision on the matter, Brian Lenihan said he did not think the proposal of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution on this issue could be put to the people as it stood.
He was speaking at the launch of a report, Rights-based Child Law: the case for reform, by the Law Society's law reform committee yesterday.
Mr Lenihan also said the principles underlying the 2001 Children Act were sound, and any amendments he was bringing forwardwere aimed at strengthening it. He said one amendment was aimed at integrating all forms of detention of under-18s in to a single child detention school.
This would involve the phasing out of St Patrick's Institution, which catered for those in the criminal justice system between 16 and 18. He pointed out that there were eight to 10 institutions to deal with about 120 children requiring detention.
Summarising the report, Geoffrey Shannon, one of its authors, said the amendment recommendation from the Oireachtas committee did not require that the child's best interests be paramount.
It did not improve on the existing situation, he said, where children were already entitled to equal rights under the Constitution, and its statement that their interests should be considered "when their welfare is at stake" could actually worsen the position of some children.
"The committee's recommendation on children is a clear departure from the recommendations of various expert groups," he said. The report recommends the adoption of the children's rights article in the South African constitution.
Mr Shannon said the existing provision in the Child Care Act for the appointment of a guardian ad litem for children in welfare cases was unsatisfactory, and the level of representation depended in part on where the child lived. Legal representation for children involved in family law disputes was also provided for in legislation, but this had not been implemented.
"If you are a child in Ireland, and you are looking to have your perspective taken into account when your parents separate or divorce, you have become a particular target for empty promises and hollow platitudes," he said.
Referring to the youth justice system, he said the key provision of the Children Act allowing a court to divert a young person charged with an offence to the attention of the Health Service Executive (HSE) on the basis of need had not been commenced. The principle of imposing detention as a measure of last resort also remained unfulfilled.
He said the principles of international conventions on children's rights should be applied to unaccompanied minors in the refugee system, rather than boxing them into some immigration category.