The District Court refused the Child and Family Agency’s application for full care orders for two children, identified as A and B, after a contested hearing lasting 19 days. It instead made a one-year supervision order, requiring the Agency to visit the children periodically.
In a written judgment dated 28 November 2014, Judge Alan Mitchell said the Agency had not proved, on the balance of probabilities, that the children’s health, development or welfare was likely to be avoidably impaired or neglected without full care orders. The children had been in care since shortly after birth and lived with the same foster family. The court said the children had spent a significant proportion of their lives in care.
The Agency’s case relied primarily on events and court proceedings in the United Kingdom, including allegations concerning the parents’ ability to protect children. The judge said no witnesses were called to prove the relevant UK documentation or the events described in it, and no evidence was called to substantiate the serious allegations against the parents. He ruled that the English judgment concerning two other children could not establish facts in this case. The parents objected to its recognition, and the Irish court had not made an order recognising it.
The court said it could attach little or no weight to expert evidence based on historic UK material, apart from the existence of care orders in respect of two of the mother’s other children, which the parents accepted. It also considered conflicting assessments of the parents. The judge accepted evidence from two assessors who regarded the parents as a low risk of future sexual offending and recommended phased reunification, with continued individual therapy. Another assessment had concluded that the mother had limited ability to protect the children and was unlikely to make necessary changes in a useful timescale.
The judgment said previous interim care orders were made under a lower threshold while the full application was pending. It found those interim orders appropriate in the circumstances, but said the evidence did not satisfy the higher threshold for full care orders. The court also said parents could not be compelled to attend therapy under the provisions considered, and that failure to attend therapy could not itself meet the threshold for a care order.
The judge described the delay before the hearing as “inordinate, inexcusable and entirely unacceptable”, but made no finding about which party was responsible. He directed the Guardian ad Litem to notify HIQA and the Ombudsman for Children and ordered the Agency to conduct an independent internal investigation. He also ordered the Agency to prepare protocols for court reports after finding that an emergency application report had omitted information identifying a third party as a potential perpetrator of abuse; he said the omission should not have occurred, while finding an emergency order would still have been made on the information presented.
The court said reunification would pose challenges and encouraged the parties, foster parents and Guardian ad Litem to work together, with expert advice, to minimise disruption to the children. The judgment ordered that the children, parties, legal representatives, Guardian ad Litem, event location and court location remain anonymous.