D'Amato hospitalised, meeting with Divorce Movement cancelled

The Children's Commissioner, Helen D'Amato, has had to cancel a meeting with the Divorce Movement because she has been hospitalised, her Office said this afternoon.

It said the movement was informed yesterday afternoon.

Last week, Mrs D'Amato at a meeting with the anti-divorce movement, said divorce could offer a solution for adults in an unhappy marriage but might not be the best option for children who are best off in a stable family.

To back her argument she quoted an American paper as well as UN recommendations that stability was important for children. However, she used certain statistics from the paper – 25 per cent of children from divorced parents are at risk of mental health problems as opposed to 10 per cent from still-married parents – without drawing attention to its conclusions.

The paper said that although children were harmed by parental divorce, the majority of findings (from various research) showed that most children did well,.

When asked about it, Mrs  D’Amato said she used the figures as one example of risk faced by children during divorce. Had she delved into the paper in detail and left out the conclusion, it would have been a different issue, she added.

She pointed out that the report concluded that children “did well”. “What do they mean by that? It does not say children don’t suffer. The truth is some are resilient and pull through... But the risks remain. Do we want to take those risks?”