The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) have again called for children to be allowed to access child support and child protection services without their parents consent.

Speaking yesterday at a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, Caroline O’Sullivan, the ISPCC’s Director of Services, said that presently child support and child protection services were restricted to “operating within a model requiring adult consent before a child can utilise such services”.

“If services are to effectively help and protect children and young people, then those children and young people need to be able to use the services without adult consent. A child who has been abused by their parent or guardian is unlikely to seek (or get) consent from the person who is causing the abuse,” Ms O’Sullivan went on.

Also addressing the Committee, the Chief Executive of the ISPCC , Ashley Balbirnie, said that a recent report on the tragic killing of a family in Wexford showed the need for “legislative and constitutional change”.

This included the need for a referendum “to insert children’s rights into our Constitution,” Ms Balbirnie said.

The Monageer report followed on from the deaths of the Dunne family. A 29 year old man, Aidan Dunne, killed his wife and two children before committing suicide. The report urged the Government to establish an “out of hours” child protection and welfare service as a matter of absolute priority’.

Various children’s groups have called for a referendum to change the Constitution’s strong protection for the family based on marriage. They sayit must be made easier for the State to intervene in families where there is abuse. However, the Constitution already allows the State to intervene which there parents abuse or badly neglect their child. Five thousand children are currently in the care system.

However, two legal experts have voiced unease at a proposed Government wording, published in 2007, which would have weakened the Constitution’s protection of the family.

Professors Gerry Whyte and William Binchy, both of Trinity, have said that a weakening of the Constitution’s family protection may make it too easy for the State to remove children from the care of their parents, especially parents from marginalised backgrounds.