Treoir, the national co-ordinating body of statutory and voluntary agencies working with unmarried parents and their children, yesterday called on the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Family for the insertion of a clause in Article 41 of the Constitution guaranteeing individual respect for non-marital families.
"It is untenable that the Constitution does not afford protection to families not based on marriage and that some of our laws still discriminate against such families", the agency said in an oral presentation.