The Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan has repeated her call for the Government to hold a referendum to amend the Constitution to insert a children’s rights clause.

Launching her fifth annual report yesterday, Ms Logan said that “gaps in law, policy and practice mean that some children remain vulnerable and are not receiving the full support of the State”.

Referring to the Ryan and Murphy Reports into child abuse, she said they showed it was “easier to violate the rights of people who are not socially powerful, something that continues to this day”.

She added: “I remain convinced that constitutional change is required to ensure that any new legislation puts the interests of children first.”

The report said that last year the Ombudsman for Children’s Office received 912 complaints, representing a 13 per cent increase compared with last year and a significant change since its first year of operations, 2004, when 94 complaints were received. Not only has there been an increase in volume, there has also been an increase in the complexity of the complaints received.

The report also highlighted a number of concerns that emerged during 2009, including: children’s separation from and access to their siblings; difficulties for children in accessing special care placements and appropriate supports and therapeutic interventions; and the lack of any statutory obligation on the State to provide aftercare support to young people leaving care;

Legal experts have cast doubt on the need for the children’s referendum. Prominent senior counsel and constitutional expert Gerard Hogan has said that the suggestion that the current Constitution does provide adequate protection for children.

Professor Hogan has argued that suggestions that the current Constitutional arrangements are inadequate to protect children were based on “a grotesque misstatement and misunderstanding of the present Constitutional provision.”

He said he disagreed with the notion that the present provisions hadn’t worked well, or that they didn’t “strike the right balance, or are in some way responsible for lots of modern ills”.

He also questioned the introduction of the concept of the best interests of the child, asking “who is going to decide what is in the best of the child, and how is this going to be done?”

Addressing the issue in February soon after the Committee’s proposals were published, he said if you were “talking about the State vindicating the rights of the child, you have to remember that this is likely to be officialdom, or some judge making this decision.”

There are currently almost 6,000 children in care. Children can be removed from families, including from married parents, where children are abused or neglected.