A draft wording for a referendum on children’s rights is set to be brought before the Government by the end of 
June, the Dáil was told yesterday.
It is also understood that the referendum could be held as early October, and it may coincide with by-elections in Waterford, Donegal South-West and Dublin South.
Tainaiste Mary Coughlan said that Minister for State for Children Barry Andrews hoped to have a wording by the end of June.
A wording based on recommendations published by the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children chaired by Mary O’Rourke TD would allow the State to intervene in a greater range of situations than the Constitution currently permits.
It would enshrine the concept of “the best interests of the child” in the Constitution for the first time, and it would allow courts to use this as their benchmark for all cases involving children.
However, it would not redefine the family, as had previously been suggested.
Constitutional expert and prominent barrister Professor Gerard Hogan of Trinity College has questioned the need for such a referendum.
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.”
Dr Hogan added: “This Constitutional amendment will be for life, and will be interpreted by the courts in the coming decades.”