Who could oppose children's rights? It is, is it not, an utterly uncontroversial idea? At a sentimental level, yes: almost everyone wants to do whatever is necessary to make children safer and happier. As a simple plebiscite of intentions, therefore, the referendum signalled on Friday by the Taoiseach suggests it deserves a resounding Yes.
But this is not simple. What, for a start, do those who talk about "children's rights" have in mind? The concept of "rights" generally means being able to lay claim to official protection for the fulfilment of one's human needs and desires.
Should children, then, have a right to stay home from school and play football in the street? Hardly, since individual rights must be weighed in the light of what is good for both individual and society, and children are, by definition, not mature enough to decide such things. This is why, in most contexts, the rights of children must be exercised by others on their behalf.
What then is at issue in all this talk of children's rights? The right to be protected from harm, danger and abuse? Oh, well, no problem with that, then? Actually, the "problem" is that the majority of Irish children are already protected in this respect in the most effective manner imaginable: by strong constitutional guarantees of the integrity of the family and the status of married parents as the best protectors of children.
Article 41.1. states: "The State recognises the family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law."
"Inalienable" means "not able to be transferred to another"; "imprescriptible" means "cannot be legally taken away". Under the Constitution, then, the right of married parents to decide what is best for their children is sacrosanct.
Article 42.5 provides the only qualification: "In exceptional cases, where the parents for physical or moral reasons fail in their duty towards their children, the State as guardian of the common good, by appropriate means shall endeavour to supply the place of the parents, but always with due regard for the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child."
Here we perceive both the deep wisdom of the Constitution and the error of the claim that the rights of children are inadequately provided for there. Bunreacht na hÉireann assumes and underpins that the natural and imprescriptible rights of children are best protected when vested in parents acting on their children's behalf.
Any insertion of what is termed "a clear statement of children's rights" would necessitate the dilution or deletion of the above mentioned provisions.
Those pushing for constitutional change have introduced many red herrings. The notion that Irish children have been abused because of an absence of constitutional "rights" is simply silly. And contrary to assertions that there is no consideration in family court cases for the interests of children, the truth is that these courts employ a trite and malleable concept of "the best interests of the child" to justify a brutish and arbitrary regime which mainly militates against the relationships between children and fathers, but not one of those clamouring for a referendum have once opened their mouths about this.
There are undoubtedly some problematic issues concerning the non-inclusion of non-marital children in the embrace of constitutional guarantees of parental autonomy, but you do not fix a cracked window by breaking all the others.
This referendum is much less about extending rights to children than about weakening the powers of parents. We can predict, accordingly, that the brunt of the pro-amendment campaign will target the concept that parents are the best protectors of children.
It will be suggested that changes are essential to protect children from abuse in the family, and we can anticipate much further demonising of the nuclear family, especially fathers. In statistical fact, the safest place a child can be is in the care of his or her parents, a reality the Constitution recognises, just as it recognises and provides for the tiny minority of cases where there may be a failure of parental duty.
This initiative is about seeking approval for a change which a generation ago would have been regarded as monstrous: a transfer of parenting rights from parents to the State. For a parent to support this would amount to insanity.
Where, in all reason, do we believe our children will be best protected: in the family home under our love and care or under the gaze of State institutions in which the only inalienable and imprescriptible rights are held by social workers and guardians ad litem, whose interests in the matter are confined to the financial and/or ideological?
Behind all the flannel and fudge of the coming months, that is what this referendum will be about.