Urgent Government attention is needed to address what is described as a crisis in the availability of appropriate care placements for vulnerable children, the organisation which reports on childcare proceedings in court has said.
The Child Law Project is marking ten years of reporting on and analysing child protection proceedings, with the release of its findings and observations since the publication of its first volume of court reports in early 2013.
The Project was set up to bring transparency and accountability to proceedings where applications are made to take children into care.
It reports on the proceedings and publishes reports on a quarterly or biannual basis detailing the issues, but maintaining the anonymity of the people involved.
Since spring 2013, it has published 859 reports on childcare proceedings in the district and high courts.
In its analysis of the last ten years, the Project said certain issues have recurred repeatedly.
These include problems of addiction, mental health, disability, domestic violence, poverty, homelessness and social isolation for parents, as well as the disproportionate representation in childcare proceedings of families from ethnic minorities and parents who themselves had been in care.
It has also highlighted the difficulties in getting timely assessments and therapies for children as well as the difficulties in getting appropriate residential placements for children with complex needs.
These include cases where children have emotional, behavioural or mental health difficulties and other disabilities.
CEO of the Child Law Project Maria Corbett said they were witnessing increasing frustration on the part of judges and professionals about the fact that an appropriate care placement cannot be found for a child.
She said this was undermining progress made over the past 20 years and she said urgent interdepartmental attention was needed to address the "crisis" in the availability of such placements.
The project's ten-year report says the Covid pandemic, the UK’s exit from the EU, the outbreak of war in Ukraine, and the acute rise in homelessness have all had an impact on vulnerable children.
It also highlights the need for the various agencies involved in the care of children with complex needs to work together.
It says ten years on it believes there remains an ongoing need for comprehensive reporting of child care proceedings and it says its remit should be extended to cover private family law proceedings.
It welcomes the fact that a dedicated Family Court, with specially trained judges, is now being established.
District Court President Judge Paul Kelly said the district court’s jurisdiction under the 1991 Child Care Act was the most challenging and significant of all the work entrusted to the district court.
Decisions in such cases had "enormous, life-changing" impacts on the children involved and their families he said.
And they were frequent cases where the miseries of addiction, violence, dysfunction, disadvantage and mental illness coincided in one family.
The cases were often harrowing and stressful for everyone involved he said, including the judges who had the "huge responsibility" of trying to make the right decision for each child.
Judge Kelly said the Child Law Project’s reports had provided invaluable insight and assistance to judges and were a valuable resource for all those working in the area.
Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman said the insights provided by the project had helped and improved policy making.
The Project’s founder Dr Carol Coulter said she was proud that they had been able to provide transparency on the workings of the child protection courts.
She said she was a firm believer that for democracy to flourish, justice must be administered in public while protecting the vulnerable.
