Two children were ordered to be returned to their parents after years in interim care and “inordinate, inexcusable and entirely unacceptable” delays in their case, according to the latest report of the Child Care Law Reporting Project.
The report, published today, said the judge refused an application by the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) to retain the two children in care until aged 18.
Both had been in interim care since birth, one for five years and the other for three years. An interim care order lasts for up to 29 days, but can be extended by order of the court.
It is followed by a full care order, to the age of 18, or by the return of children to their parents.
The elder of the two children was born three days after the parents arrived in Ireland. They already had two other children and both had been taken into care in another country following evidence of the sexual abuse of one.
The parents denied involvement in abuse and no perpetrator was identified. They had been warned by social workers in the other country that the new baby would also be taken into care.
When the baby was born in Ireland, social workers from the other country contacted the hospital expressing their concerns, and the agency, then the Health Service Executive, became involved. The baby – and a sibling born two years later – were taken into care in Ireland.
The judge ordered the two children should be gradually returned to the care of their parents and observed by the agency as part of a supervision order. He said the failure of the agency to call evidence from the other jurisdiction was fundamental to his determination in the case.
He directed the agency to carry out an investigation into its handling of the case, describing the delay in it as “inordinate, inexcusable and entirely unacceptable”. He also directed it to carry out an inquiry into why EU provisions, allowing for the transfer of a family law case to the parents’ country of habitual residence, were not used in the case.
He also said the court could not condone and “strongly disapproves” of the parents’ “conscious and deliberated decision” to come to Ireland. Their decision was based on different childcare legislation here, particularly regarding adoption, he said. But he noted they might be of the opinion that “the end justifies the means”.
The case is one of 26 childcare cases due for publication, bringing to 101 the number published by the project, led by Dr Carol Coulter, in the last year.
Dr Coulter said she hoped the information and insight yielded by the reports were “helping to produce greater clarity and consistency for those working in the area”.
The report is available at childlawproject.ie.
Case study 1 A young girl who was so neglected that lice were visible moving on her head was retained in the care of the State, along with her sister.
The siblings had been taken into care on an interim basis prior to an application for a full care order by the Child and Family Agency to retain the girls in care until adulthood.
A school principal gave evidence at the District Court of the condition of the two young girls. She became emotional when she described the lice infestation on one of the children as so bad it looked like the child’s whole head was moving.
“I could see spider-like creatures moving, I could see hundreds of them moving down her neck,” the principal said.
“She had an inch-long scab, a raised scab at the back of her neck. That’s when I noticed there were bites on her back when I looked at her neck. She was very aware that she was not the way she should be, she was very embarrassed. I tried to reassure her.”
In school, other children avoided sitting near her and she sat near the teacher. She was described as “very quiet, very stressed and anxious looking” as well as “very pale, like the weight of the world was on her shoulders”.
Her sister’s head lice were not as bad, the principal said, but she was also socially isolated. She did not have friends and walked around on her own in the school yard.
The mother, who had left the country and was uncontactable, did not attend the hearing. She had a history of drug addiction.
A medical addiction specialist from a methadone clinic told the court he knew the children’s mother from her attendance at the clinic since the late 1990s. She was treated for heroin addiction and was given methadone, but her substance misuse had never gone away.
The children’s father, who was only aware his children were in care two weeks’ prior to the hearing, consented to the full care order and did not attend court.
Case study 2 Three children in their early and mid-teens who escaped from emotional and physical abuse and neglect at home, were taken into the care of the State until adulthood.
The children planned how they would get away and even tested escape routes, before climbing out a window using a ladder. They ran to neighbours who contacted gardaí, a District Court was told.
The judge gave permission to the Children’s Court-appointed guardian to refer the case to the Ombudsman for Children to examine why earlier concerns about the children were not followed up.
The children had no friends, no structure to their day and were self-taught.
They were not allowed outside their home and stayed up late at night so they could sleep longer during the day and avoid their mother’s violent outbursts. One child told the social worker she learnt how to read at 12 when her older sister taught her.
The mother, who had registered them as home-schooled, spent most of her time in her room, using a bucket as a toilet, which she asked her son to empty.
She beat one of the children, telling the others she was the reincarnation of the Holy Spirit and she was “beating the white devil out” of the child.
There were also allegations of sexual abuse against her.
Their father seldom visited and failed to be a protective factor for them, the court heard.
There were files from the local social work department from 1999 onwards, when the second child received a burn for which she was not adequately treated.
The mother had also been before the National Education Welfare Board and in court 16 times before 2000 for the non-attendance of her daughters at school.
FIONA GARTLAND
