ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which the relationship between children, their families and the state was thought about during this more reflexive period of constitutional law. Taking the publication of the Kilkenny Report as its departure point, it first examines how the courts handled children’s issues. It does so by examining the extension of children’s rights to include new concepts such as participation, the problem space that arises between the rights of children and parents when questions of parental misconduct arise, and finally the rights of particularly vulnerable children. The Report of the Kilkenny Inquiry, led to the first sustained examination of the place of children within the constitutional order since the brief consideration of this issue. Children at risk have presented the courts with some difficult legal questions, including what rights these children have, what remedies are constitutionally permissible in order to vindicate these rights and, at a deeper level, how these children should be seen.
