Fianna Fáil has proposed a Bill to hold a referendum to allow for the adoption of the children of married couples.

They have suggested that it take place on the same day as the Presidential election later this year.

Donegal North-East TD Charlie McConalogue, the Opposition spokeperson for Children, said the Constitution needed to be changed to remove barriers to adoption for children who are originally born to married parents.

Their proposed amendment states: “Provision may be made by law for the adoption of a child where the parents have failed for such a period of time as may be prescribed by law in their responsibility towards the child, and where the best interests of the child so require. Provision may also be made by law for the voluntary placement for adoption, and the adoption, of any child.”

Mr McConalogue’s party colleague, John Browne, said that the constitutional position of the married family made it “nigh impossible for children of married parents to be placed for adoption, regardless of obvious failings in their duty of care for the child”.

“I hope that all parties will actually be able to support this tonight and that this very important referendum will be run alongside the Presidential election so that those children would actually have the right to be adopted,” Mr McConalogue said.

He said there were currently about 5,200 children in foster care, with a third of them were in long-term foster care, which was very unusual by international standards.

“We estimated that there’s roughly maybe 1,000 children in that category who cannot be adopted who might wish to be adopted,” he said.

Fianna Fáil is using its private members business time in the Dáil tonight to propose the 29th Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2011.

In February 2010, a cross-party Oireachtas committee chaired by Fianna Fáil’s Mary O’Rourke proposed, among other things, that married parents could consent to having their children placed for adoption if a constitutional amendment on children’s rights was supported in a referendum.

The then minister of state for children Barry Andrews went on to say some of the committee’s wording had “unanticipated consequences”.

However, Mr McConalogue said the wording relating to the adoption of children of married parents was “non-contentious”.

Mr McConalogue accused the Government of reneging on an election promise to hold a children’s rights referendum quickly.

“The current Government when they were in Opposition a few months ago were hounding the Government to actually set a date, actually gave a commitment that they would, and as soon as they’ve got into power now have kicked it out to next year.”

However, Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald, said she was not interested in a “piecemeal approach” to dealing with childrens’ rights, and reiterated the Government’s commitment to hold a referendum on that issue early next year.

She said that the planned referendum would reflect the wording produced by the Joint Oireachtas Committee chaired by Mary O’Rourke rather than the wording produced earlier this year by the outgoing Fianna Fáil led Government.

She said that she placed “a high value on the consensus outcome that was achieved and I will work in the same vain to ensure effective outcomes for Irish children”.

She added: “I would hope that introduction of the bill before us tonight does not mark or lead to a fragmenting in that all-important consensus.”

The wording produced by the Oireachtas Committee, chaired by former Fianna Fáil TD Mary O’Rourke, did include a reference to a child’s best interests, and proposed replacing the current reference to the inalienable rights of the family.

A number of experts have warned that this term could be used in such a way as to make intervention by the State in family life too easy.

It is also understood that both the Department of Justice and the Department of Health worried that Committee’s wording would expose the State to large liabilities before the courts.

The newest version of the amendment, agreed between the Attorney General’s office and the office of the Minister for State for Children shortly before the election, was criticised by children’s charities such as Barnardos.

Barnardos, and the Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan, have said they want to see the phrase “best interests of the child” included in the legislation.

However, a range of legal and social commentators have warned that the wording proposed by the Oireachtas committee last year has a number of possible pitfalls.

Constitutional expert and recently appointed High Court judge Gerard Hogan said that the phrase “best interests of the child” could be ambiguous.

Everyone, he said, was in favour of the best interests of the child, but, he asked, “who is going to decide what is in the best of the child, and how is this going to be done?”