THE IRISH GOVERNMENT has ratified a protocol to a UN convention designed to strengthen children’s rights.

Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Charlie Flanagan, TD signed and ratified the protocol today.

He did so as he was attending the 69th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.

World leaders and Foreign Ministers are at the event to discuss solutions to some of the world’s geopolitical issues.

Minister Flanagan signed and ratified the 3rd Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

This will provide Irish children with a route to a United Nations Committee, which can hear complaints in relation to violations of their rights where all available domestic remedies have been exhausted.

Minister Flanagan, who previously served as Minister for Children and Youth Affairs,  paid tribute to Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, James Reilly, who brought the proposal to ratify this protocol to Government.

The Children’s Rights Alliance said last week of the protocol:

Now children will have somewhere to turn when our national bodies and courts cannot help them.

Later today, Minister Flanagan will meet with Mary Robinson, UN Special Envoy on Climate Change, to discuss follow-up to the Special Summit on Climate Change, which Taoiseach Enda Kenny addressed yesterday.

They will discuss Ireland’s work on climate-smart agriculture in Ireland’s key partner countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Read: Government to sign UN protocol that gives Irish children more rights>