Children First is no longer a national aspiration but a constitutional reality with the enactment of this legislation.
Within decades of our children being demonised, brutalised, criminalised for their audacity to be poor, different, abandoned, orphaned, troubled or just plain neglected, with Children First they are recognised and constitutionally protected as citizens of the Republic in their own right.
For this government, it was and remains a first but important step in imagining and creating an Ireland where the idea and experience of childhood are recognised, respected and protected.
As a country, we have a lot to be ashamed of. A lot to be sorry for. It remains in our psyche as a nation.
When we came to government in 2011, I was determined to undo some of that wrong to our children and other fragile members of our society, including legislation on:
The National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act
The Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Offences against Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act
Child and Family Agency Act
Children and Family Relationships Act
Gender Recognition Act 2015
But Children First is not a political amulet we hang around Ireland’s neck to protect us from the misdeeds of past generations.
Rather I believe it is truly ‘re-forming’ legislation, that recognises our children, and protects their position under the Constitution, Bunreacht na hEireann, itself.
It establishes them as individuals with their own separate rights their own discrete needs of respect, dignity and protection.
We were determined to make Children First something that Ireland could and would be proud of, both in legislation and in practice.
But at the same time, we were adamant that in our determination to forge a new and proper child-protection reality in Ireland, that while we would move with all alacrity to protect a child in danger, we would not commit the critical error of making up for past shortcomings and major lapses towards our children catalogued report after report by taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
We had to make sure that no institution, regardless of its origin, would ever again trump the best interest of the individual child, their needs, their rights, their dignity.
That is why with Children First, in any cases of competing interest, it is the child’s best interest, the child’s best interest alone, that takes precedence.
Children First is not a child-protection panacea.
It is not a social or national salve.
Rather, it is comprehensive legislation that protects the child and actively promotes his or her best interest at all times.
Yes, the family in all its modern and compassionate forms is the basis of society.
Wherever possible, it is better a child remain within its family unit.
Sometimes, however, this is simply not possible.
The cases publicised by the Child Law Project show the significant need for intervention and protection and equally for family and individual support.
These and other cases show that across Ireland, there are children marooned not in ‘lives’ but in an ‘existence’ of neglect or violence or abuse.
No functioning ‘adult’ in the family, to provide not just the practical minding of meals and hygiene and protection, but the love, the respect, the dignity that will make a child and can determine their future.
Importantly, and as I have said before, I am anxious to reassure families that Children First is not and will not become a charter for trespass by the state and its agencies into their children’s lives and their own.
In fact, the government resolved that Children First would clearly set out and demand that any actions taken be first and always in the best interest of the child and that they be judicious, timely and proportionate.
Of course, accountability is the way to guarantee the public responsibility commensurate with such public power in what are intensely private and personal circumstances.
At this point, I wish to pay tribute to the social workers and care workers who do such a magnificent job in regard to our children and families. They are deserving of the highest respect. We will depend on them to make this legislation work.
For the government’s part, we knew we weren’t making this legislation in a vacuum. It is integral to our commitment and our plan to do more for our children and to do better for our families.
Even at the height of the economic crisis we put all our children first by creating a Department of Children and Youth Affairs with its own designated minister.
It is clear in many cases that when we are ‘intervening’ we are already too late. We must catch children and families before they fall.
We must support families from Day One, if we are to give them the future and the opportunity they deserve.
Good and proportionate ‘intervention’ is not interference, be it parenting programmes, family support, the chance of early education.
It is how we will truly support all children and every family in health and nutrition, learning and social opportunity now and into the future.
That’s good for our children, our families, our economy and our society because we know that the rate of economic return on good early-years’ investment is significantly higher than for any other stage in a child’s life. So if not then? When? It’s the way to a secure home life, access to education and later a good job, a place in society.
That is our idiom of care as a government. I want to pay tribute to Minister James Reilly and his Department for delivering on this legislation today, and to members of this House and the Seanad, particularly Senator Van Turnhout, for their support and guidance.
I am delighted to speak today on the passing of this legislation. May it keep our society, our families and our children , now and into a prosperous future, rich in opportunity, compassion, safety, respect, dignity.