As the dwindling numbers of people who read this blog will know, I haven't been excited by much Irish news lately. But this article, pressing as it does a number of my buttons, made me sit up and take notice:

TEACHERS last night gave a guarded backing to calls for immigrant children who cannot speak English properly to be "segregated" in our classrooms.

This followed a Fine Gael call yesterday for the Government to separate immigrant children with poor language skills from the rest of their classmates.

...

His comments attracted qualified support from the ASTI [secondary teachers' union] last night. However, they preferred to describe the teaching of immigrant children apart as putting them in “immersion classes” rather than “segregation”.

The ASTI spokeswoman said an understanding of English was the key to the integration of immigrant children in schools.

Doubtless there will be knee-jerk responses to this from both sides. Not that anybody listens to me, but I would plead for a few points to be kept in mind. The first being that there are several different considerations involved here, such as:

• How non-English speaking children can learn the language as quickly as possible
• How to prevent them falling behind in their other subjects
• How to ensure English-speaking children aren't brought down as a result of all this

The biggest problem, it seems to me, is that there isn't necessarily one solution that effectively addresses all three of these issues (and that's before we even get into the subject of the social and psychological effects of separating students). I remember the bilingual education debate that was raging in California when I lived there in the 1990s - for all I know, it still is. One side presented studies showing that totally immersing the kids in English was the quickest way to teach them the language. The other side presented studies showing that own-language education in addition to intensive English was the most effective way to promote their all-around academic achievement. Sometimes, these were the same studies. Even proponents of one particular viewpoint were at times forced to admit that it wasn't necessarily a question of finding the "right" solution, but of deciding which aim to prioritise.

Language is a funny beast. It arouses almost inexplicable passions in people, often in inverse proportion to the amount they actually know about it. As was once pointed out to me by a friend of mine with an advanced degree in the subject, so much about language is counter-intuitive - and yet there seems to be hardly anyone out there without a very firm, almost visceral, opinion on the right way to deal with the vexing linguistic issues that arise. It's true for a lot of subjects, of course, that people form views from which they can't be swayed no matter how much contrary evidence is put in front of them. But language seems to me to be exceptional in the extent to which people care so much on the basis of so little understanding of how it actually works.

And it hardly needs to be added that people's views on the subject are often influenced to a great degree by their views on immigration and multiculturalism in general. This makes it difficult, at times, to sort out legitimate concerns about educational standards from lumpen xenophobia just looking for a respectable excuse to latch onto. Of course this works in reverse too: those of us who think of diversity as a positive end in itself are sometimes guilty of not thinking through the practical consequences of policies designed to promote it.

The education of children is an area where society simply cannot afford the hazards of such knee-jerk reactions from either side. It's too important to be decided on the basis of who's shouting the loudest, or which policy fits most neatly within a particular overall ideological framework. The government needs to look very closely at the available evidence - of which there is plenty, just ask the Californians - and make the decision that is demonstrated to be genuinely best for the children, regardless of how (un)popular it is. I know what I hope that decision turns out to be, but it's not for me to advocate. I don't really understand how it works either.

Quick note on the unmarried fathers case

Good news in this case. I haven't followed it closely, and I understand it's probably only a limited victory, but it is certainly a good decision - not just for the man in question and his children, but also for common sense.

I have a problem with a lot of the fathers' rights crowd. Too often their complaints about the Irish legal system descend into rants on feminism - as if the legislators and judges who came up with our family law were all mad women's libbers, rather than ultraconservative Catholics trying to discourage extramarital sex and believing that women should mind the kids, preferably while standing barefoot and pregnant [but only by their husband] in the kitchen.

But the underlying argument - that unmarried fathers in particular are grossly discriminated against in Irish law - is virtually undebatable. Today's decision may be only a small step toward reversing this ridiculous injustice, but it's a welcome one.

The first thing that has to be acknowledged is that the Baby Ann case is a terrible one whichever way you look at it. All participants in it deserve sympathy and recognition of the difficulties they have faced, and will continue to face, because of it.

That said, I am going to break the consensus that’s emerged and say that I think the Supreme Court made the correct decision.

From a legal perspective it was really the only choice the Court could have made. The previous High Court decision, however logical it may have appeared, was clearly in contradiction of the 1937 constitution. But that’s not my argument. I don’t believe that those who sided with the adoptive parents proved the case that it was in Ann’s best interest to remain with them, and particularly not to the extent where it should have overridden their rights as her parents.

The argument for her staying where she was was that it would be disruptive to her life to remove her from the only parents she’s ever known. Undoubtedly this is true, in the short term. But two-year-old children are remarkably adaptable and it seems unlikely to me that she will suffer ill effects from the change in the long run. It’s just as possible that she would have suffered from knowing that her birth parents wanted her back and were not allowed to have her back.

I’m also not convinced that those who supported the adoptive parents were entirely motivated by the “best interests of the child” argument. Let’s consider a scenario in which the birth parents hadn’t willingly given her up at birth, but lost her through, say, a kidnapping. Assume that the adoptive parents knew nothing of the kidnapping and believed they were adopting through proper legal means. Would there still be a consensus that the child should remain with them? I very much doubt it. Many would agree that the birth parents should regain custody on the basis that they hadn’t chosen to give the child up – although this would hardly make removing the child from her adoptive home any less disruptive. Now admittedly I’m only making an assumption here on how people would react to this scenario but it’s an assumption I strongly believe is correct and if it is, it demonstrates that there is more than the mere “best interests” argument at work here (in much the same way that many people who claim to oppose abortion on the basis that they believe it is murder are nonetheless willing to make exceptions when women don’t choose to have sex).

And what that points to is an issue I raised earlier in this blog at the time of the Jehovah’s Witness transfusion case – the risk of the “best interests of the child” being used as a convenient cover to pursue a different, sometimes more sinister agenda. Such cases have already emerged in the US, where right-wing judges have used that excuse to deny custody to lesbian mothers or practitioners of minority religions, or where women have been jailed for not adhering to prescribed standards of behaviour during pregnancy. If you recall the Elián Gonzáles case, his uncles were only prevented using that argument in their custody battle by a Florida law which states that the “best interests of the child” are relevant only in a battle between two fit parents, not between a fit parent and a non-parent. You can bet that if it wasn’t for that law, the anti-Castro mafia which controls the state of Florida would have ruled that the boy’s best interests lay outside of Cuba.

Which is why I’m also hesitant to join in the consensus over the upcoming referendum to enshrine the rights of children in the Constitution. I support it in theory, because I have no basic disagreement with the notion that children should be given more constitutional protection - not least from this Government giving its appalling record on many children's issues (poverty, education etc). But I do think we need to recognise that there is negative potential in this constitutional amendment as well – potential for children to be turned into political footballs and for “children’s rights” to become just another vehicle by which reactionary forces can exert control over adults’, and in particular over women’s, lives. The wording of the proposed amendment will be extremely important and needs to be given due attention by the progressive parties in this State. We should not simply be falling over ourselves to welcome the referendum without any reference to this very real concern.

In regards to yesterday's blood transfusion case, I have two questions.

1 - If this woman had been a Catholic, and had refused a medical procedure on the grounds that it violated her religious views, would it have been forced upon her?

2 - If she had been a man, would the Court have decided that his status as "parent" was the overriding factor?

I suspect in both cases the answer would be "no".

The second for me demonstrates the need for a certain amount of caution in the recent trend towards prioritisting "the best interests of the child" in every legal dispute. People do not cease to be individuals with their own needs and rights simply because they have children. It's often women who suffer when we forget that, as Article 41.2 of the 1937 Constitution demonstrates. A balance needs to be struck which respects, to the greatest degree possible, everybody's human rights - and I don't think it has been struck in this case. The patient's decision is not the one I would have made, but it's her body and she should have had the right to make it.