Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-15-Speech-2-197"
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"en.20080115.24.2-197"2
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"Mr President, I welcome this report and the work the rapporteur has done on it.
From listening to the debate, there is almost total agreement on what we need to do when it comes to children’s rights, and we have come a long way from the old adage that ‘children should be seen and not heard’. Today we not only want to see our children but also to hear and listen to what they have to say.
However, we need some clarification – and perhaps the Commissioner could do that for me – in relation to what competence the EU has in this area of children’s rights in the light of the Treaty that has been spoken of and our vote in Ireland on that Reform Treaty. As you know, under the Irish Constitution, the rights of children are seen as best protected in the context of the family. We need to acknowledge the important role the family plays in protecting children’s rights and we need to look at measures aimed at strengthening families and supporting them where that is necessary.
There is also the question of the marital versus non-marital family and whether there are equal rights for children in both of these situations. There is a significant increase in the separated and divorced population in Ireland and an increase in cohabitation of couples: one in twelve families takes this form, with responsibility for 50 000 children. We need to look at how the rights of those children are being protected under Irish law as it currently exists.
There is also an issue about the access of children to both of their parents and the invisibility of children currently under the Irish family law system, and that has to be addressed.
One last point: there was uproar in 2006 when the Irish Supreme Court struck down the law on statutory rape on the basis that it did not allow an accused individual to enter the defence of honest mistake over a victim’s age. The case involved a 41-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl. Today, ironically in the Dublin district court, sex assault charges against this individual were dropped. We are to have two constitutional amendments in Ireland on the issue of the family and the case I just mentioned, and I think we need to see where the EU fits into children’s rights so that we vote in Ireland in the right way."@en1
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