Press Release: Justice  29 September 2006

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29 September 2006

Immediate action needed to enshrine children's rights in Constitution

– UN Committee concerned about lack of protection in Ireland

The Green Party today reiterated its call for the Constitution to be amended to better protect children's rights. The call comes as the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed its concerns in a number of areas including: the lack of provision for children's rights in the Constitution; the Government's decision to lower the age of criminal responsibility to ten; and the failure on the Government's part to implement all provisions of the Children Act 2001. The Committee issued its concluding observations in Genevatoday as part of Ireland's second examination under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Green Party Justice spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe TDsaid: "The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has drawn international attention to a range of issues on which the Government is failing the children of Ireland. To the fore of these concerns is the failure of the Government to take action to enshrine the rights of the child in the Constitution. The Minister for Children, Brian Lenihan, advised the Committee that he has embarked on an 'article-by-article' review of the Constitution insofar as it related to children but has also warned that the Government will move slowly on effecting any change to the Constitution. The Green Party strongly urges the Minister to move on this issue without delay.

"The Committee has expressed extreme concern at the new age of criminal responsibility, which now allows for children as young as ten to be found guilty of a serious criminal offences, such as murder and serious sexual assault. This move from the Government contravenes the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Green Party opposed this legislative change, viewing it as an extremely regressive move on the part of the Government, and the Minister for Justice in particular. Setting the age of criminal responsibility at ten makes it lower than in almost any other comparable countries and is disastrously counterproductive when we consider that the Children Act of 2001 had raised the age from seven to 12 years.

"The UN Committee also pointed to the Government's failure in fully implementing the Children Act 2001. The Green Party has long been campaigning for the full implementation of the Children Act, which provides for a range of alternatives to detention such as community sanctions. Minister for Justice Michael McDowell TD was hell-bent on introducing Anti Social Behaviour Orders to this country when the Children Act 2001 already contained all the measures necessary to deal with troublesome kids.

"I hope that the Minister for Children will work in conjunction with the Justice Minister and other appropriate agencies to arrange for a referendum to amend the Constitution to provide explicitly for the rights of the child. Our children have waited long enough."