Today marks the first in a series of sessions in which the all-party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution will hear oral presentations from a range of groups and interests regarding the provisions in the Constitution on the family, writes Karen Kiernan.
The Constitution was written in 1937 when the overwhelmingly dominant form of family structure consisted of a married couple and their children. Marital separation was low, divorce was not permitted, extra-marital cohabitation and birth were frowned upon and, therefore, correspondingly rare.
In 2005, however, things are markedly different. Divorce and marital separation are increasingly common, over one-third of all births are to parents who are not married to one another, and there has been a significant increase in the number of families headed by a solo parent.
The 2002 census counted 153,900 one-parent families, home to 11 per cent of the Irish population. However, 100 per cent of constitutional protection is afforded to one family type only. The Constitution continues to define the family as that based solely on marriage and therefore excludes a significant number of families from its legal protection.
The Supreme Court has consistently reiterated that the family provisions of the Constitution apply only to families where the original adult members are married to each other and not otherwise.
For example, the law as it stands presupposes that children with non-marital fathers somehow need their fathers' input less than those with marital fathers. As such, the inequalities in the application of constitutional law to parents based on their marital status undermines children's access to relationships with their parents if they are unmarried, notwithstanding the fact that it is arguably in the best interests of children to maintain a relationship with both parents.
It is also clear that the role of the State in the Constitution is envisaged as strictly secondary to that of parents. As a result of this parent-centred focus we have a legal framework that views children simply as an adjunct of the family, where children become the object of ideological struggle between the family on the one hand, and the State on the other.
It is almost universally recognised, and copperfastened in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, that in any legal matter concerning children, it is the child's best interests that are of paramount weight. Our Constitution, by contrast, privileges families and parents over the interests of children.
The Constitution should place children first. In other words, in all cases concerning children their best interests should be paramount. Parental rights are too often placed to the fore of constitutional argument, at the expense of a perspective that privileges what are genuinely the best interests of the child.
If we persist in legislating within a constitutional framework that is out of step with family life and changing family relationships, we will continue to reinforce a two-tiered system of rights for children in marital and non-marital families. If we continue to legislate based on whether families are marital or not, perhaps then it will continue to be permissible not to recognise one-parent families as valid family forms and to blame them for their poverty.
It will also be permissible to continue not providing for those children adequately with regard to their family's housing and their family's level of income. Our lack of provision for these children and their families will somehow be justified because they are simply not equal in the most fundamental legal document of our nation.
The EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions released earlier this year found that 33 per cent of one-parent families live in consistent poverty in comparison with 9 per cent of the general population. And 42 per cent of one-parent families live at risk of poverty in comparison with 23 per cent of the general population.
One-parent families scored the highest on the eight indicators of deprivation used in the survey - 33 per cent couldn't afford new clothes, 31 per cent experienced debt from ordinary living expenses, and 24 per cent stated that they went without heating at some stage in the previous year.
To achieve equality and social inclusion for all one-parent families, root and branch constitutional reform is required:
To place the child and his or her interests at the heart of our Constitution and to make practical efforts to realise this aim;
To displace the privileged position of the marital family by recognising in our Constitution all family forms;
To bring Irish law into line with the European Convention on Human Rights by placing an obligation on the State to respect and support family life in all its manifestations.
All families deserve equal protection under our laws. With adequate resources, social support and recognition, with enhanced childcare and work-life balance supports, one-parent families will prosper and thrive. Constitutional change on its own will not achieve these ends. It can, however, supply the foundations for legal and social policies based firmly on the richness of family diversity, and the inherent worth of all families in Ireland today, whatever their basis or origins.
Karen Kiernan is director of One Family - Voice, Support, Action for One-parent Families (formerly Cherish)