Ms Fitzgerald said
yesterday the fact that the referendum was not part of the legislative programme did not mean that the
proposed amendment had fallen down the Coalition’s list of
priorities.

She said: “It’s quite
normal for referenda not to be included in a legislative programme.
[Referendums] arise separately and are added as addenda at the appropriate
time.” She added that the Government favoured holding such a referendum “in the
near rather than the distant future,” but that no timetable had been agreed, the
Irish Times has reported.

She has already said
she will study two proposed referendum wordings, one proposed by an Oireachtas
committee last year, and one produced by the outgoing Government in January. She
said she would be “linking up” with the Attorney General before bringing the
issue before Cabinet.

Asked if she favoured
holding the vote on the same day as the presidential election in October, Ms
Fitzgerald said this was one option that would be considered.

Ms
Fitzgerald told RTE’s Morning Ireland earlier last month that she would “examine
the differences” between the wordings.

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?”

Another Trinity
lecturer, Dr Oran Doyle, expressed misgivings about the wording. In a speech
last year, Dr Doyle said that the proposed referendum posed the question as to
who would decide what the best interests of the child were and suggested that
Article 42.2.3 of the wording gave a de facto answer to this question, an answer
which said might entail “greatly expanded state power and greatly reduced
parental autonomy”.

Ms Fitzgerald said
plans to establish a new executive agency for child protection, outside of the
Health Service Executive, were in train.