Madam, - I can't agree that yesterday's decision in the Baby Ann case proves any need for a referendum on children's rights. What it does show is that we need to get to grips with some difficult issues. For instance, the silly nonsense that just because a child's parents are married there is no "realistic possibility" of adoption for that child. Why not? A wedding band does not magically transform a couple into good parents. It seems to me that what should really be at issue here is the worrying supremacy of the rights accorded to (heterosexual) marriage.
That said the judges in this case all seem convinced of the natural parents' integrity and fitness for parenthood. The child is only two, and as long as the adults involved in the process of transferring her to the care and custody of her natural parents do not mess up by forgetting, or ignoring, their most basic responsibility (her welfare) then there is no reason she should not adjust quite happily to her new family. In a few years she might well have gone looking for them (or vice-versa) anyway and that would not necessarily be any easier a situation to deal with. - Yours, etc,
CATHERINE KELLY, Goatstown, Dublin 14.
Madam, - The Government and administration of this State seem continually to be beset by legal and constitutional crises that would embarrass any self-respecting banana republic. The reasons behind the recent rather mysterious move by the Government to propose yet another referendum (this time to cement children's rights) have suddenly become clear with the Baby Ann case.
Has this amendment been in place beforehand, we may be sure that the case would have had an outcome based on the rights of the child.
In its brief existence, the Irish Constitution has already been deemed to necessitate 27 amendments. The United States constitution has had 16 amendments (leaving aside the initial 10 amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights).
It would appear that either we have a judiciary whose mentality, principles and customs make it incapable of bringing common sense to bear on the Constitution, resulting in it being an intellectual playground for the legal profession, or we have a Constitution that simply cannot be made to make sense. Either therefore the former needs to be reformed root and branch, or the latter needs to be replaced altogether. Meanwhile, the Third All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution trundles along, since 2002, with life passing it by. - Yours, etc,
JOHN STAFFORD, Dargle Wood, Knocklyon, Dublin 16.