Press release from The Iona Institute 

A new opinion poll conducted by Amarach Research on behalf of The Iona Institute has found that seventy percent of respondents agree with the statement, ‘Children have a right to be raised by their own mother and father’.

Only eight percent disagreed with the statement while the remainder said they neither agreed nor disagreed.

The fact that such a clear majority of people believe that children have a right to be raised by their own mother and father is pertinent to the Children and Family Relationships Bill which takes no account of this fact.

The finding of this poll must be combined with the finding of another poll Amarach conducted on behalf of The Iona Institute in February which found that a massive ninety-one percent of respondents believe when a child is available for adoption, it is best to place the child with a mother and a father. (See note 2 below)

The Children and Family Relationships Bill is also odds with this belief.

Commenting on the latest poll findings, Professor Patricia Casey said on behalf of The Iona Institute:

“The fact that 70 percent of people believe a child has a right to be raised by their own mother and father means the Government and the opposition parties are completely out of step with public opinion. The Children and Family Relationships Bill attaches no special value at all to motherhood and fatherhood which is why it is completely indifferent as to whether or not children are raised by their own mothers and fathers, or any mother and father.

She continued: “The earlier poll finding on adoption also shows the extent to which our politicians are out of step with public opinion. The Children and Family Relationships Bill is the most radical piece of family law reform in the history of the State. It has been rushed through the Oireachtas with almost no debate. This is a terrible reflection on the state of Irish parliamentary democracy at present”.

ENDS