A District Court judge ordered the Child and Family Agency to pay the respondent father’s legal costs for four court dates in the early stages of child-care proceedings, finding that leaving him to bear those costs would cause particular injustice.
The order covers two dates in early autumn 2014 and two in mid-autumn 2014. Judge Marie Quirke made no further order for costs. The judgment does not state the amount awarded.
The case began in autumn 2014, when the Agency applied for an Emergency Care Order concerning the infant identified as Child A. The application was made on the day of Child A’s brother’s funeral. The brother, Child B, had died in a car accident during the summer. The mother and Child A had also been in the car, and the mother required medical attention afterwards. The initial Emergency Care Order was granted for seven days.
The father’s solicitor represented him throughout the proceedings, but did not receive a Legal Aid Certificate authorising state-funded representation until mid-autumn 2015, when a full Care Order application was due to be heard. The father could not afford a private solicitor. The judgment records that he had cognitive difficulties, had left formal education early, and had a longstanding relationship of trust and confidence with his solicitor.
In considering the costs application, Judge Quirke applied the Supreme Court’s guidance in Child and Family Agency v O.A. [2015] IESC 52. That guidance sets a general position of no costs order for parent respondents in District Court care proceedings unless distinct features justify departing from it. The judge found the Agency had not acted capriciously, arbitrarily or unreasonably, and that the case’s outcome was not particularly compelling.
She nevertheless found particular injustice would result if the father had to bear the costs, given the length and complexity of the proceedings. She considered the circumstances at the outset exceptional: the first application was made on the day of the child’s brother’s funeral, the father had limitations and an established relationship with his solicitor, and there was then no legal aid system allowing him to choose that solicitor.
The judgment records that a Care Order under section 18 of the Child Care Act 1991 was made in mid-autumn 2014 for two years. The costs ruling does not alter or revisit that care order; it addresses only the specified early court dates.