The passage of the Government’s children’s rights referendum will not lead to “forced adoptions,” Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald (pictured) has said.

Speaking at a Law Society seminar on the proposed amendment yesterday, she said that the adoption system contemplated by the amendment will be very different from the UK system, where children in care are eligible for adoption, the Irish Times reports.

“It is very rare here for children to be adopted without the consent of their parents,” she said.

“It is already possible under our adoption law that where parental failure exists for a period the High Court can order adoption.

“The new conditions are that where there has been three years of parental failure and the child has been in the care of the prospective adopters for 18 months, and where the failure of the parents is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, the High Court can make an adoption order.

“This is a very different approach to the UK. We don’t assume that if a child is in foster care they are available for adoption. There will be a huge number of safeguards.”

Ms Fitzgerald added that the amendment’s reference to a “proportionate” intervention in a family meant there should be early intervention and family support.  

“The intervention should be proportionate to the risk the child might be facing,” she said.

She said that there had been over 32,000 referrals relating to abuse and neglect in 2011, of which 1,500 cases of abuse and serious neglect were confirmed.  

She also pointed out that, according to the recent report on child deaths, some of the children died in the care of their families, but were known to State services. She said the authors, Geoffrey Shannon and Norah Gibbons, had said that early intervention might have changed things for them.

Ms Fitzgerald, referring to the said she did not expect there to be many, but this did place all children on an equal footing with regard to adoption. “Some children will have a second chance at a normal family life,” she said.

The amendment was only one aspect of improving things for children. There was a need to improve practice everywhere, to look at resources and how services were organised, she said.

Former Supreme Court judge Mrs Justice Catherine McGuinness said that the Constitution did not actually say it was only talking about the marital family, that came about as a result of Supreme Court judgments.  

“An accretion of judgments has built up so that one lot of children is treated very differently to another lot of children. The protection of the family was only guaranteed when the family was legally married according to Irish law.”

These judgments arose from a series of cases, usually adoption cases, where the natural parents later married and changed their minds about the adoption.

Gerry Durcan SC said that a recent judgment of Mr Justice Donal O’Donnell was very significant. He had pointed out that the presumption that a child was best-off in a family of married parents was only common sense, adding that the State would only interfere “when a family is not functioning and providing the benefits to its members (and thus the benefits to society) which the Constitution contemplates”.  

Meanwhile, fathers’ rights campaigners opposed to the children’s rights referendum have left the Children’s Rights Alliance in protest at the organisation’s support for the proposed constitutional amendment.

Ray Kelly of Unmarried and Separated Families of Ireland (USFI) confirmed the referendum had prompted his group to resign from the coalition of more than 100 organisations that make up the Children’s Rights Alliance.

“The proposed amendment doesn’t go far enough. It’s a golden opportunity wasted to give children an equal right to have a father. It’s an erosion of parental rights and it’s actually putting the State in the position where it’s more powerful than the parent,” Mr Kelly said.

“We don’t feel that the referendum is actually about children’s rights. Looking at the wording we don’t see anywhere it’s actually giving more rights. It’s actually an adoption referendum.”

A spokeswoman for the Children’s Rights Alliance said the USFI had expressed concern about the referendum but had not provided formal notification that it was leaving the coalition.

She said the alliance had always had a positive working relationship with USFI, “and we firmly believe that reform is needed to support a child’s right to know and have contact with both of their parents, regardless of their marital status”.