Judge calls for mandatory legal aid in some family law cases regardless of income

Legal aid should be “mandatory” regardless of income in family law cases where parents seek domestic violence orders or face their children being taken into care, a Dublin District Court judge has said.

Judge John Campbell said the “working poor very often lose out” in cases where their disposable income exceeds the €18,000 a year income threshold for legal aid.

Speaking at a conference on domestic violence and child protection on Friday, the judge, who hears childcare cases in the Bridewell court, called for the lifting of salary caps for child-protection social workers and greater State support for foster families.

In a speech, highly critical of both Government actions and inaction on family law, he said the long-planned family law court building in Dublin will be like a “railway station” and would be “not a good idea” for vulnerable children and their parents.

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The most important issue for the family law and childcare systems was resources.

“The difficulty of course is the cost-of-living crisis, the rental difficulties – to get social workers to work in Dublin.

“We hear talk in other sectors about how salary caps should be lifted, in banking or air traffic controllers. Is not the welfare and safety of our children the most important issue?” he asked.

“There aren’t enough foster families to take children,” he continued. “Very often a child will be taken in [to care] on an emergency care order and may well move several times from foster placement to placement.

“That may involve moving schools and losing all of the support a child derives from being in school – being nurtured by teachers, spotted by the special needs assistant if things are going on. Very often the cure can become worse than the complaint. It’s not good for the child and it’s an indictment of the system,” he said.

“Also, [there should be] compulsory legal aid in all cases where children or their parents find themselves in Dolphin House on domestic violence or in the Bridewell. There are strict requirements for meeting the threshold for legal aid and the working poor very often will lose out. That hampers the safe procedure of the case. They have the difficulties of having to take time off work, of having to pay a solicitor.

“There should be mandatory legal aid for these people. These are a vulnerable cohort,” said Judge Campbell.

Describing “amendments to the Constitution” and “further legislation” as “virtue signalling”, he said these didn’t “put one more social worker on the ground or provide one more residential unit for a teenager”.

[ New family court complex at Hammond Lane in Smithfield faces major delays ]

He also questioned the benefit of a long-planned purpose-built family law complex at Hammond Lane near the Four Courts for those families before his court.

A dedicated family law building for Dublin is a key commitment of Minister for Justice Helen McEntee in her plans to reform the family law system. “Is that a good idea for the children whom we deal with, and their parents?,” asked judge Campbell. “I say, ‘No.’

“I say this because for the moment we are in an elderly courthouse in the Bridewell purposed only for childcare [cases]. The parent will not meet anybody except anybody directly involved in the case.

“I am not sure if I am going in one day to get a barring order against my abusive spouse or partner and the next day I am going in to fight off [Tusla] which has decided that because of the behaviour of my spouse or partner the children should be taken into care, if I am going into what will be a railway station style environment where there is divorce and separation and the High Court and Circuit Court. I know politicians believe it is a good idea but in practice I don’t believe it is necessarily beneficial for the cohort of clients we deal with,” he said.