The amount earned by some individual court-appointed guardians is "outrageous" and "wouldn't be tolerated in the UK", the chief executive of Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, has said.
Gordon Jeyes also criticised the allocation of resources made to some children in care through court applications made by guardians ad litem (GALs).
He said he sat as a guest of the court not long after coming to Ireland and was “hugely impressed by the wisdom and compassion of the presiding judge”.
“But during one case he insisted that the child and family services, as was, purchased a laptop for this Romanian 17-year-old so that he’d keep in touch with his family in Romania, as he didn’t like using internet cafes,” he said.
“I’m sorry, I don’t really have a lot of sympathy for that. I think that’s disproportionate to the amount of resource I have.”
He said as an agency, Tusla was under-resourced and required to live within its resources. "I think it's great to be surrounded by people who don't need to bother about money; judges, guardians ad litem, Hiqa, ombudsman, rapporteurs, none of them need to bother about money, but me," he said. "There is something wrong in that."
The more nuanced answer was that there needed to be balance, he said, though he would never reach the stage where the agency would not act on behalf of a child because of budget pressure.
Last year, the agency spent €16.5 million, out of its operational budget of €609 million, on GALs. This was made up of €9 million to pay GALs directly, €6 million for their solicitors and €1.5 million for their barristers, out of a €36 million legal bill. This year, the costs are heading for more than half of the agency’s total legal bill, Mr Jeyes said.
GALs are appointed by judges to represent the wishes and needs of children in child care cases. They meet children, their foster carers and their parents and report to the courts on their findings. At present, GALs are unregulated, and Mr Jeyes said, are accountable to no one. “They are not accountable to us so therefore we should not be paying them; somebody else should be paying them,” he said.
Insufficient resources
“There are insufficient resources for the sort of GAL system Ireland wants, but they don’t solve that problem by just expecting a third party to muddle on and find the resources and develop the system.”
He said everybody agreed the system was broken but there was “dither” and “memorandum ping pong” going on between departments of State.
“I don’t know that for a fact, but having worked in other bureaucracies that’s what I expect,” he said. While an estimated 80 per cent of GALs have their own legal representation in court, Mr Jeyes said it should be “the absolute exception”. He said it contributed to “mutually-assured destruction of the system as we all arm up”.
Significantly reduced
Since taking direct control of protection services, Tusla had significantly reduced the use of barristers; there was no need for them in the District Court, where most child care cases take place, Mr Jeyes said.
"If you engage extremely able counsel you are much more likely to be debating the law than the child . . . and that's never in their interests," he said. The Irish Times highlighted cases in which GALs had secured extra resources, such as psychotherapy, for children when a solicitor on their behalf made an application to the court. Mr Jeyes responded that this led to a disparity in the services provided to children, with more resources going to children in care on foot of court orders, while those in voluntary care lose out as a consequence.
The legislation, in the Childcare Act 1991, that introduced GALs was “well-intentioned”, Mr Jeyes said, but needed “clarity of purpose, of accountability and direction”. He suggested a regulated GAL system set up as a separate agency, or a system for GALs similar to that operated for probation officers.
“GALs represent the court, so a simple solution is they should be court officers and there should be a budget for the judge to use and there should be a sufficient budget,” he said.
