The District Court refused the Child and Family Agency’s application for an interim care order for two children, identified in the judgment as Child “A” and Child “B”. Judge Rosemary Horgan adjourned the Agency’s separate application for a care order for further determination.
The Agency sought to remove the children from their mother while the care application proceeded. It raised concerns about their exposure to conflict at home and in the neighbourhood, and about the mother’s understanding of the possible emotional effects. The mother opposed the application. The children’s father did not participate in the proceedings.
The court found that the mother’s paranoid schizophrenia had stabilised with regular medication. On the evidence, her illness alone did not put the children at risk. The judge also found that the parents’ unsettled relationship, the mother’s difficulties with neighbours and her public order arrests did not, individually, establish a need to take the children into care. The children were described as thriving and attending school and crèche regularly.
The judge accepted that there was reasonable cause to believe the children’s welfare was likely to be avoidably impaired through unintentional exposure to conflict inside and outside the home. Evidence from the allocated social worker, family support worker and mental health visitor included occasions when the mother became heightened around the children or discussed adult matters in their presence. The judgment also records the mother’s objections to some Agency services, which she considered intrusive, and her account that she felt undermined by the intervention.
However, the court was not satisfied that the evidence established circumstances under section 18(1)(a) or (b) of the Child Care Act 1991 requiring the interim orders sought. It found no evidence of physical harm and no cogent evidence that the anticipated risk of future harm was significant, or greater than the harm the children might suffer through abrupt separation from their primary caregiver.
The judge concluded that the Agency had not shown the children required interim care to protect their health or welfare. She refused the interim care order and adjourned the care order application. The judgment does not grant a supervision order or determine the adjourned care application.