IRELAND
The University Times
Graham Murtagh
Staff Writer
When you look back on the history of this rocky Atlantic outcrop, children, for all our blather about equality and respect, never really got much of a look in. Undoubtedly, traditional sensibilities viewed children as something to be seen and not heard and to be heard only when spoken to. Where such consequential conversation was deemed necessary, it should at least be mercifully brief. The proclamation, held aloft, to ‘cherish all children of the nation equally’ seemed to produce an unanswerable gulf between those under and over the age of majority.That culture produced one of the greatest scandals of modern times – the Cloyne Report into abuse in Catholic institutions is but one tome that details a history of menacing, dangerous abuse and recalls lost innocence. The pleas of children went unaddressed and attended to, and the humiliation was allowed to continue relatively unchecked. Our sense of traditionalism outweighed our sense of duty towards children, to their cost and to ours – an unwillingness to intervene because it was ‘none of my business’.
That approach simply doesn’t wash today. Tomorrow, Saturday, you will be asked to vote in a referendum on an amendment that, if passed, will place children’s rights front and centre for the first time. This is our time to truly give effect to the intent of our forefathers, and the insertion of Article 42A will provide for greater protection for those in our society who arguably need it most.
The amendment consists of four parts, and provides for the deletion in its entirety of Article 42, and its replacement with Article 42A. The first provision of the new section is a statement of intent – Article 42A.1º provides for an explicit recognition of the rights of the child. These rights are natural and imprescriptible, and therefore cannot be lost under any circumstances. The section amounts to a consolidation of existing Constitutional rights that apply to all citizens, this time tailored to be absolute in their protection of children specifically. This is a long overdue provision – for too long, we failed to accept that children, while possessing intelligence and independence to be themselves and to make their voices heard, are not adults and so deserve explicit protection. That is the protection that Article 42A.1º gives.
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