I also congratulate the Government on the passage of the children's rights referendum and acknowledge Senator van Turnhout's particular role. I also congratulate and wish well those on the different sides who brought the benefit of their life experience and expertise to sincere contributions on the debate. Unfortunately, I cannot congratulate the Government on the manner in which it treated taxpayers' money. The Government must have been in some kind of cocoon of unreality in which it deluded itself into thinking it could spend taxpayers' money in whatever way it wished.

I also was struck by the comments made this morning by the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Gilmore, on his hopes for a referendum on redefining marriage in effect because there also appears to be an air of unreality about that. One must be clear about a couple of points. The Tánaiste claims that gay marriage is a human right and while that might be what he thinks, it is not what the Universal Declaration on Human Rights says about marriage. It is not what the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says about marriage and it is not what the European Convention on Human Rights states about marriage because each of the aforementioned human rights documents understands marriage to be the union of a man and a woman. Moreover, each of these documents is many times more important than is Deputy Eamon Gilmore's declaration on human rights.

That said, I am not afraid of a debate. Bring it on and let us have a full and open debate about this. One could call it the second children's rights referendum because central to that debate will be the right of a child to be brought up by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage and that the State shall not do anything to lessen the preference for that situation in the laws that apply. I make this point with full regard of course to people's rights to protections of various kinds that already have been passed in the law, in however flawed a way notwithstanding.

What about the rights of children of these arrangements? They have no rights at all.

Senator Mullen to continue, without interruption.

However, the Tánaiste appears to have learned very little from the children's rights referendum debacle. The history of referendums dealing with social and ethical issues is interesting because there is a pattern. The political elite convince themselves of the necessity of liberalising stupid old traditional Ireland. Opinion polls appear to heavily support them in the early days and the media all are onside. Two months before the referendum polling, opinion polls are even more emphatic in suggesting the constitutional change will go through. Thereafter however, there is debate and the final result is either a terrible shock to the political and media elite or an almighty scare, such as was evident last weekend. If the Supreme Court has adjudged the Government of the day to have acted unconstitutionally, no matter, because even if the referendum had not succeeded the other day, we probably would have a second bite of the cherry in due course. The Government should brush up on its social history before running in blithely with naive claims about what constitutes authentic human rights, as it certainly is not a version supported by the international human rights instruments.

On the subject of children's rights and children's welfare, it is astonishing that although 12 Senators raised the issue of the illegal and dangerous advice being given by counselling clinics to women seeking abortion, the Minister has still not seen fit to come into this House to make a statement, or to go into the other House to which he is even more accountable under the Constitution. On five occasions, women were told to hide their abortions from their doctors. One woman was told twice that if abortion complications arose after her surgical abortion, she needed to tell medical staff in the hospital that she had a miscarriage. In the HSE service, the woman was told that in the case of any future pregnancies after abortion, she could tell her doctor that this was her first pregnancy. I am afraid that I, and I think other Senators, will not be able to let this go until the Minister faces up to his responsibilities and makes a statement about his concern on this issue. I will ask the Leader again what I asked him last week, namely, for the Minister to come to the House on the matter.