Children’s rights must be the most important priority of the State and the interests of the child must be put above all other contextual considerations, President Michael D Higgins has said.
Addressing a conference on child welfare hosted by Barnardos, he said it was “past the time to give genuine meaning to the phrase ‘cherish all of the children equally’ ”. He had seen “attempts through the years” to progress the rights of children coming into “collision after collision as to whether the rights of children should be treated equally with property, and the property argument has always won out”.