An interim care order for a boy in foster care was extended yesterday at Cavan District Court after a judge heard a psychologist’s report on the child and his siblings raised additional concerns about their welfare.
Judge Seán MacBride was also told the legal team working for the parents in the case would no longer represent them.
Counsel for the parents said she regretted having to make the application to “come off record”, but could say no more than that she was “compromised”.
Though details of the psychologist’s report were not given in court, a social worker said its concerns for the boy were heightened by it.
Another child in the family had also made disclosures, the court heard, and these were under investigation.
The social worker, employed by the Child and Family Agency, accepted the boy and his sister needed therapeutic support as “a priority”.
Judge MacBride, sitting in Virginia Courthouse, extended the interim care order to October and said it was important that new legal representation was obtained by the parents as quickly as possible.
In a separate case, Judge MacBride said it was a “no-brainer” that an infant whose mother was addicted to drugs should remain in the care of the agency.
Mother on drugs
The baby was taken into care soon after it was born and the mother had recently agreed to attend a detox programme. The baby had also been addicted to opiates at birth.
The mother had recently presented “clean”, the social worker in the case said.
Extending the interim care order to November, the judge said the mother was in “the very early steps of recovery from drug addiction” and would have to be clear of opiates for a considerable time before the court would consider returning the child to her care.
In another case involving a review of a full care order, Judge MacBride reprimanded legal teams after a dispute over access to documents arose between them.
Counsel for the father said she had just begun representing her client and was “quite shocked” by the facts. She wanted an adjournment.
A solicitor for the agency opposed the adjournment as the case had been listed eight times.
She said that, in 2013, allegations were made against the child’s foster father in relation to another child, and the judge ordered that the foster father not have unsupervised access to the child in care.
The foster father had since left the family home. On appeal by the father, the Circuit Court had ordered the foster mother should be assessed for fostering as a lone carer.
It also told the agency to visit the foster family every week to check the foster father was not alone in the house with the child. He was alone on one occasion when the child returned early, the solicitor for the agency said.
Rejected application
The judge granted the adjournment and rejected an application from the agency that the obligation to check on the foster family each week be dropped.
Asked by counsel for the father if the judge could direct she be given all the documents relevant in the case, Judge MacBride said he would not be told by her or anybody else how to do his job.
When the agency sought to narrow the documents, the judge refused and said he’d have no nonsense or “hide and seek. Give her the alpha to omega so they can’t say they are being booby-trapped,” he said.
After a further interjection from counsel for the father, the judge said he was a man of 65 years; vastly experienced.
“Don’t dare tell me how to do my job,” he said. “I don’t need that in the autumn of my life.”
