A chara, – No one would argue against protecting children and preventing abuse. I’m just waiting for someone to show how this amendment will do so. Commentator after commentator in the letters columns and opinion pages of this paper have demonstrated that it adds nothing to the existing rights of children, while giving extra powers to the State.
As one of the main problems is the Government’s failure to use its existing powers to protect children, how will the referendum achieve anything?
Or is it somehow envisaged that the amendment will additionally give the powers-that-be a back-bone transplant? – Is mise,
Sir, – On Tuesday I received a text from the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) encouraging me to vote Yes in the children’s referendum on November 10th so that I would be in with a chance to win an iPad.
Surely NYCI should confine its activity to encouraging young people to exercise their franchise rather than enticing them to vote for one side with the possibility of winning an iPad?
This action contravenes its mandate to promote “democratic rights and active involvement” and amounts to a misuse of public funds. – Yours, etc,
Sir,– The children’s rights referendum is not, as Dr Eimear Thornton (October 17th) and others suggest, intrinsically linked to the abortion debate. The latter is an incredibly divisive issue within this country and though it undoubtedly needs to be legitimately confronted and discussed in the coming months, it has no place in the current debate. The children’s rights referendum is our chance to make a number of straightforward and progressive changes to our Constitution, changes that will be of enormous benefit to many of this country’s most vulnerable citizens. To endanger these changes by muddying the waters of relevant debate with spurious or irrelevant connections is to do a disservice to these citizens. – Yours, etc,