An advocate for young people in care has urged the Government to allocate resources to enable the courts to meet their new mandate to hear the voice of the child, particularly when new parenting arrangements are being made when their parents split up.
Wayne Dignam, of the Care Leavers' Network, who spent most of his childhood in care, says that many judges were not appointing court guardians in such cases.
Mr Dignam said the Family Mediation Service risks being overwhelmed as it attempts to consult children under the terms of the Children and Family Relationships Act.
The Care Leavers' Network is an advocate group for people who were in institutional care or other forms of out-of-home care, including foster care, as a child or youth at some time in their lives.
According to their website, in 2014 there were approximately 20,000 care leavers in Ireland.
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Already, a senior judge, Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan of the Appeal Court, has questioned whether there is an obligation on the courts to meet their mandate imposed on them this year if additional resources have not been made available by the State for that purpose.
Her question was revisited this morning by one of the country's leading family mediators, Grace Corrigan, who works for the Family Mediation Service at Dolphin House Family Courts, the only dedicated family law court in the country.
She was addressing a seminar at Trinity College Dublin of over 150 professionals from the legal, social work and medical/paramedical fields.
It was organised by the Irish Branch of the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.
President of the District Court Rosemary Horgan, who opened the event, said that the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 (CFRL), sections of which were commenced this year, was "a seismic piece of legislation".
Ms Corrigan outlined its new requirement on the judiciary to ensure that the views and perspectives of children have been heard in family law cases which impact on them.
She said mediators working in the shadow of the courts were required to consider their way of practicing afresh.
She noted that, in general, Family Mediation Service mediators do not require children to attend mediation and depend on the ability of each parent to speak on behalf of their children.
"It's dependent on parents having the ability to attune to their children's needs," she explained.
But she added that, pursuant to this year's rolling out of the CFRL, her profession has moved to affording children the opportunity to speak directly with the mediator so that their views and perspectives on future shared parenting arrangements might form part of the decision-making process.
"In doing this the mediators are supporting the Court to fulfil the statutory obligation in upholding children's rights in accordance with Sections 45 and 63 of the CFRL," she said.
She said her office offers mediation free-of-charge on issues concerning access, custody, guardianship, maintenance and, where appropriate, mediates in child welfare cases.
It deals not only with separating and divorcing parents but also with those who have had children without living together for a significant period but who wish to make parenting arrangements, she added.
For more information on the impact of the Child and Family Relationship Act 2015 you may wish to click here.
