The High Court has refused to quash a preschool operator’s conviction for failing to ensure enough competent adults were supervising children, holding that the District Court judge was entitled to find that two adults were insufficient for 24 children.
In a judgment delivered on 5 December 2008, Mr Justice McMahon dismissed Carol English’s judicial review challenge to her conviction in Navan District Court. She had been fined €250, with costs, after being convicted on 10 May 2006 under the Child Care Act 1991 for breaching Article 7 of the Child Care (Pre-School Services) Regulations 1996. Execution of the District Court order had been stayed pending the review.
English argued that Article 7 was too uncertain to create a criminal offence because it did not specify staff-to-child ratios or the qualifications required for adults to be considered competent. She also argued that the Minister had unlawfully delegated powers and sought a declaration that an explanatory guide to the regulations had no legal effect.
The High Court accepted that the guide’s recommended ratios were not legally binding and did not bind a court interpreting “sufficient”. It said, however, that the guide was relevant context. The judge noted that English had used the recommended ratios in her own advertisements and information to parents, and had received inspectors’ warnings about falling below expected ratios.
The court said the District Court could consider accepted standards in the preschool sector when deciding what counted as sufficient, while making its own determination on the evidence. It applied the judicial review standard that a decision would be set aside only if no reasonable judge could have reached it.
At the District Court hearing, a Health Service Executive preschool services officer gave evidence that supervision was inadequate. The High Court recorded that four adults had been rostered, but only two were present with 24 children at the relevant time. The District Court accepted the officer’s expert evidence and found the supervision inadequate. Mr Justice McMahon held that the judge was entitled to reach that conclusion.
The High Court therefore refused the application to quash the conviction. The judgment does not treat the guide as binding law; it upholds the District Court’s fact-based finding in this case.