The report of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution is "weak, ambiguous and indecisive" in relation to children, according to the latest issue of the Irish Journal of Family Law.
The editorial of the specialist journal for family lawyers also points out that an international declaration cited by the committee in support of its definition of the family as based on marriage was later repudiated by Ireland and other EU states.
"The committee refers to the November 2004 declaration of the Doha International Conference as 'the most recent global endorsement of the family as an institution' . . . stating it was adopted without a vote by the United Nations in December 2004.
"That vote, however, was not the end of the matter . . . After the adoption of the aforementioned resolution the EU [including Ireland] withdrew from the resolution, citing as a primary reason 'the omission of language previously accepted at international levels, which recognised that the family structure could take various forms'," the journal says.
"The Doha resolution is not an authoritative source for the protection of the marital family," it adds.
The editorial criticises the committee's recommendation that a new clause be inserted into the Constitution stating that all children should be equal before the law, and that "in all cases where the welfare of the child so requires, regard shall be had to the best interests of that child."
The first part only reinforces the existing constitutional requirement that children are equal between each other, it says. The second sentence only requires that regard should be had to the interests of the child, not that their interests should be paramount, and only where the welfare of the child requires it, not that they have rights in a general and systemic way.
"The proposal falls far short of our international obligations, including the requirement of the Convention on the Rights of the Child," the journal states.