The first definitive evidence of the intellectual bankruptcy of the present Government is its decision to press ahead with the 1997 Children Bill, bequeathed it by the Rainbow Coalition. The Bill went through its second reading in the Dail last week and reaches committee stage this week.
This is an utterly derelict and discredited piece of legislation. While purporting to "update" the law on issues of guardianship, custody and access, it will introduce a regime which will make 1950s Ireland seem like a paradise of enlightenment and equality.
Six months ago, the architect of the Bill, the then minister for equality and law reform, Mr Mervyn Taylor, was challenged by The Gay Byrne Show to debate this legislation with me on air. At first his advisers indicated that he would participate, but when he twigged that he would be dealing with someone who had tumbled to his strategy, he backed out.
I am not suggesting that the Children Bill is not an extremely clever piece of legislation. It is one of the most cunning pieces of legislation we have ever seen, exploiting as it does the desperation of people - mostly fathers and grandparents - who have been banished from the society of their children and grandchildren.
It is also one of the most cynically calculating pieces of legislation ever framed in this State. In exploiting people's fears and hopes, and engaging in ritual nods to the conventional cant and humbug, it seeks to tackle a profound and difficult problem by sweeping it even further under the carpet.
I am sorry to have to say to those many people who have been led to believe that this Bill offers them hope of having relationships with their beloved grandchildren that it will do no such thing. Since access in such circumstances will continue to depend on the consent of the custodial parent - which, presumably, would have been the problem in this first place - this Bill will change nothing.
I am sorry, too, to have to tell the many fathers currently fighting the system for the right to have an input into the lives of their own children that the provision in this Bill for what is termed "joint custody" is a sham. The courts already have power to award joint custody, but almost never exercise this option. The present judicial culture, being deeply biased against the father, favours sole custody being awarded to the mother, which is the outcome in the vast majority of cases. The Children Bill allows for what it terms joint custody (this concept is not defined) if the court thinks it appropriate (my italics).
Without a change in the culture of the existing court system, this is likely to be employed to reduce the already marginal number of instances in which sole custody is awarded to fathers. At present, if a mother is so clearly dissolute that she is unable to stand up in court, it occasionally occurs that sole custody is awarded to the father. In my belief, the net effect of this Bill in practice will be that henceforth such cases will be dealt with by awarding joint custody.
In other words, a father will have a chance of obtaining an order for joint custody only if he can persuade the court that the mother is a wholly unsuitable candidate for sole custody. This will ensure that the process will become even more adversarial and unpleasant. Sole custody for the mother will remain the norm, but politically correct politicians will be able to point to the existence of the concept of joint custody in law and wash their hands of the consequences.
But the most abominable aspect of this Bill is the way it attempts to off-load responsibility for the State's moral cowardice onto the shoulders of vulnerable children while suggesting that it is doing so in the interests of such children. Among the provisions is that children be brought into court, or allowed to give evidence via video links. This element of the Bill has nothing whatever to do with giving rights to children, and amounts to the embodiment in law of a form of child abuse.
If this Bill becomes law, children will be dragged into court to say whether or not they want to have contact with their fathers. In many cases, this will occur in a situation in which immense manipulation and pressure would be in play to perform in accordance with the wishes of the custodian parent. The United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Ireland ratified some years ago, states that it is wrong for one parent to deliberately damage a child's image of the other, but this happens every day in this State and is ignored by our courts system.
Until now, this tactic was used in an informal manner to undermine fathers. Under this legislation, it will be institutionalised in Irish law, another weapon in the formidable armoury of lawyers who have already become rich from their efforts to separate Irish fathers from their children. This provision is deliberately framed to perpetuate this legal goldmine, while suggesting that this is being done in the interests of children.
Despite these scandalous shortcomings, I regret to say it is likely that this Bill will shortly be passed into law. With the exceptions of the contributions of Liz McManus of Democratic Left and Ivor Callely of Fianna Fail, there has been no worthwhile political opposition to it.
Most of our politicians have no direct experience of our family courts and are deeply ignorant of their Dickensian nature. Male politicians, in particular, seem to feel it necessary to genuflect in front of Mna na hEireann before opening their mouths to say little or nothing. The Minister for Justice, it appears, has abandoned zero tolerance towards criminals, and replaced it with an attitude of zero tolerance towards fathers and children.
It is symptomatic of the condition of public debate on these life-and-death issues that, in reporting last week's debate, the national newspapers opted to highlight a rambling and irrelevant contribution by Mr Ben Briscoe (suggesting that there be compulsory blood tests for couples getting married) rather than highlight the criminally discriminatory nature of this legislation.