Sir, – In his latest broadside against the upcoming referendum, John Waters (September 28th) contends that “serious misrepresentations” are being perpetrated by Yes campaigners. Focusing on the Roscommon and Baby Ann cases, he declares that “what emerges from these cases is not any inadequacy of the Constitution in relation to children, but incompetence and dubious practice by social workers”.
John Waters has done a fine job of cherry-picking examples to suit the pattern he would like to see. Permit me, then, to rudely intrude upon this wishful thinking with a reminder of In re JH ([1985] IR 375) The facts of In re JH are markedly similar to those in the “Baby Ann” case.
JH had been placed for adoption shortly after birth by her unmarried mother, and had been reared for two years by loving foster parents. The child’s natural parents then changed their minds, and refused to give a final consent for JH’s adoption by these foster parents. The natural parents married, and sought a court order for the return of the child. JH knew no family other than the couple who had raised her as their own, and their son who had accepted her as his sister. The High Court recognised, on the basis of uncontradicted evidence from two eminent psychiatrists, that “the child is clearly bonded to the adopting parents and the boy as though they were her own parents and brother respectively. Any sundering of these relationships will cause considerable immediate suffering to the child and a real possibility, if not a probability . . . of long-term serious harm”.
Despite this, a very reluctant Mr Justice Lynch was forced to order the return of JH to her natural parents, on the grounds that the welfare of the child was not sufficiently enshrined in our constitutional framework such as to defeat the power of the marital family, which is accorded rights in trenchant terms. This sorry tale would certainly have had a different and less shameful outcome under our proposed amendment.
I will be voting Yes, enthusiastically, on November 10th. As I do, JH will be on my mind. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The more we study it, the more we have come to realise that the children’s referendum is a complete misnomer. It doesn’t give rights to children at all, but transfers total control of all children and their parents to the “State”. It is also absolutely unnecessary, unless, of course, it is for the purpose of copper-fastening the actions of a dysfunctional “child-care” system, that, with the blessing of the same “State”, destroyed tens or hundreds of thousands of families and children in this country, in the past and continues to do so today.
The State and State agents have a very murky record in safeguarding the nation’s children. Where, for instance was the “State” throughout the darkest period in Irish history when State-sponsored-and-facilitated abuse of children was taking place?
Almost 40 per cent of the children consigned to the industrial schools were there as a direct result of the ISPCC (working obviously with the consent of the State). Can anyone forget the heart-rending cry of that extraordinary gentleman Michael O’Brien, victim of horrific institutional abuse, on the RTE Questions and Answers programme in May 2009? Was there a dry eye in the country as he told a shocked nation how “Eight of us from the one family, [were] dragged by the ISPCC cruelty man, put into two cars, brought to the court in Clonmel, left standing there without food or anything”.
It appears that the ISPCC and the State washed their hands of all further responsibility for the O’Brien children after that, as they apparently did with the other 40 per cent. And the ISPCC is calling for a Yes vote in this referendum!
Fool us once, shame on you, but we won’t be fooled twice. We’ll be voting No. We need to change the system, not the Constitution. – Yours, etc,