Child Care Conundrum –Theory &
Practice
I am bothered greatly by the child care
system in Ireland. Most of the children
taken into care are from poor and marginalised groups. Let me say at the outset that I do not
believe that the privacy of the family trumps everything and support fully the
idea of scrutiny from outside, however, carefully controlled and monitored. In an earlier time, I watched Nuala Fennell ,
Minister for Women’s Affairs as she was then, pilloried because she suggested
an investigation into the death of Anne Lovett, a young girl who died giving
birth in a grotto. Against the Minister,
it was strongly asserted that the family needed its privacy and that was that.
Ranks were closed and so when some time after Anne’s death, her sister also
died, there was hardly a ripple. Rumours
were rife but that was it. Happily we
seem to have travelled some distance since then (one can never be entirely
sure) but how insightful and compassionate we are as a nation, is another day’s
work. We like to think of ourselves as
nice, hospitable people and that notion is so fixed in our minds that it seems
to me it actively prevents radical re-examination of our societal values and
our ability to look at ourselves critically and with self awareness. Even now, after all the exposure of child
sex abuse and corruption at all levels of our society, we have still to openly
debate the type of society we want in Ireland and how we are to create it. We continue to elect politicians whose main
hallmark is their paucity of vision.
They are either profligate, louche, cute whores or thin lipped, mealy-
mouthed and cap doffing. Either way,
they are mostly an embarrassment. Perish
the thought that we should have vision.
Ideals are for the young and immature, we seem to think, but do we ever
stop to ask what we are without them? If we have no direction, no vision, nothing to
aim or strive for, where the hell are we headed and for what purpose? Here we are about to abolish the senate in
Ireland without a second thought, with practically no opposition or debate,
little insight into the historical context in which it arises, the people that
particular institution has thrown up and without whom we would be mightily
poorer as a nation, little or no knowledge of how much will be saved by the
abolition even though that is the main plank of the argument for its removal in
the first place, and no real or meaningful discussion of reform within that
institution as an alternative to abolition and how reform might create something
with the true potential to improve the functioning of our democracy. It is so much easier to destroy than to
reform. It is hard to accept what is
wrong but still to try and make something better. As a family lawyer I know this intimately. It
is one of the hallmarks of marital breakdown i.e., the instinct to destroy as a
reaction to hurt rather than to pause, examine and strive to preserve what can
be preserved for the sake of the whole. Valueless people profit all the while from
those baser instincts in our nature. However, this article is not about the
abolition of the senate though I needed to say what I thought about it in
passing, this article is about the child care system. As I said it bothers me. I have a number of
questions about it – why are so few middleclass parents caught in the childcare
net? How much cultural awareness do we
as a nation have about the values and culture of other nations living
here? How compassionate are we to them
and understanding of their needs? How
much training do our professionals have in dealing with foreign nationals? Who
are our foster parents and what are the criteria for becoming foster
parents? In deference to the immigrants
in Ireland, are we actively encouraging non- Irish nationals living in Ireland
to become foster parents and if not, why not?
How much debate is there about the fact that certain foster families
make their living from foster care, is that good or bad? Who are the lawyers who represent the HSE in
their operation of the child care system and how are they chosen? Who represents the parents and how are they
chosen? Is there a danger of jadedness
and/ or a cosy cartel operating between these professionals? While fundamental rights are frequently at
issue in child care proceedings and therefore, the courts and the judiciary are
rightfully, in my view, involved in the child care system and its operation, it
does seem to me that we need to consider a less adversarial approach and
certainly in the lighter cases. How much
thought and debate are we having about the voice of the child in such
proceedings and how that might best be brought into play and since experts are
frequently involved in such proceedings, who are these “experts” and what expertise
do they need to have to make them experts?
There are so many questions but why am I
focussed on this right now? As many of
you will know, very few private practitioners who are not involved in the legal
aid scheme, and I am not, do child care work and the reason is that very few
people find themselves in the child care system who can afford private legal
representation. As I said, this is a system which affects the
poor and marginalised disproportionately, or so it would seem. When I was asked, not too long ago, to
represent immigrant parents who had got caught in a child care situation but
who could not afford me, I agreed because I wanted to see how this area worked
in practice. I never expected that I
would be fairly actively involved for over a year and I certainly learnt a lot
from the experience. Of course, you
cannot generalise from one case and I do not intend to do this but because of
that case and chiefly arising out of my experience with that case, I conducted
a fair amount of research and spoke to a lot of various “experts” and
colleagues more experienced in this area than myself. In the course of all of this, I became a lot
more versed in this area than I ever expected to be and a lot more concerned
about its operation that I had been previously.
Arising out of that case, I voted against the children’s amendment to
our constitution not because such an amendment is not worthy and certainly not
because I do not believe in the rights of children or their autonomy as human
beings, but because the operation of my child care case was such an eye opener
that I feared the children’s amendment would be abused and cynically
manipulated rather than used to benefit children as intended. I still have those fears. The amendment which
was passed has yet to be enacted.
The parents in my case were poor and
marginalised and would never have been able to afford private legal
representation had I not simply agreed to take the case. The very first question I was asked by the
HSE’s legal representatives when I appeared was why this couple had left their
“very able and competent” representatives in the Legal Aid Board? The very fact
of having engaged private representation called these parents into question and
seemed to confirm the diagnosis of them as difficult and having something to
hide. We were off to a great start. I should say that my couple had never
actually harmed their child. The child
in question was a healthy older child close to her teenage years described as
intelligent and well behaved by all concerned.
They had, however, behaved in a neglectful manner on one identified
occasion, by failing to collect the child. No actual harm had come to the child on that
occasion as a result of their failure, but authorities got involved and
contacted other authorities and so forth and so on. It is fair to say also that as the situation
was being investigated, the pattern of their drinking, as parents gave rise for
legitimate concern. It would be wrong of
me to say otherwise. However, after I
had completed extensive research into the child care cases reported in the
court judgements, newspaper reports, reports of Dr Carol Coulter and discussions
with colleagues, I think I can say with confidence that this case was a “light”
case. Nonetheless, the organs of the state rowed in
on top of this family at full tilt. The
Gardai arrived to the home of this immigrant family with no translator and just
took their child and if they gave explanations, they were not capable of being
understood since the parents had little or no English. The mother immediately ran to the local garda
station after they took the child as she had no car. She was refused information since no one was
able to talk with her despite Polish people having lived in Ireland for over a
decade now in fairly large numbers. She
was handed a piece of paper in Polish which told her to be in court the next
day. No one was available to speak with
her in her language about the matter. The following day the child was taken
into care on an emergency order and ultimately, the parents were not allowed to
see her for eight weeks. For that first
and crucial appearance in court they were unrepresented and there was no
translator. Accordingly, the only
perspective the court had from the outset was that of the authorities who had
taken the child. It took nearly a week
before they were assigned a legal aid solicitor on the eve of their second
court appearance. Imagine not knowing
what was going on in those circumstances for that length of time and not seeing
your child? The parents spoke little or
no English and were confused and bewildered to the point of nervous
breakdown. From the time of my involvement, which was
another court appearance later, I was struck by the adversarial nature of these
proceedings. At no point was I cordially
received or entertained by either the representatives of the HSE or their
professional social workers. At first, I
thought it was my imagination, but even I am not that paranoid, their demeanour
was always hostile and occasionally aggressive. Having read the handbook for social workers
involved in the child care area, I thought, naively as it turned out, that our
engagement was going to be solution orientated. The literature would give that
impression. I approached representation
on that basis from the outset only to find myself being treated as the
enemy. My colleague regaled me with her
knowledge of “polish drinking” habits and seemed to be completely confident
that she could speak authoritatively about the whole nation in this way. She sought to involve me conspiratorially in
this thinking. Only someone with little
awareness of our own history and how we were perceived, and continue to be
perceived abroad, would have adopted such a high moral tone. But even allowing that she may not have been
entirely unaware of that, she still sought to place a whole nation into a
stereotype. I would not play and so the
conversation quickly became tight lipped.
Drinking during the day, she seemed to think, was an indication that one
very likely had a serious alcohol problem as if drinking in the evening was
somehow less of an indication. She found
my unwillingness to concede this very unreasonable and when I told her that as
a student, many years previously, I would very occasionally have found myself
in good company and drinking during the day, her reaction was so incredulous
that I began to wonder if my own child would not be taken into care and thought
I had better shut up quickly. So much
for reasonable solution orientated discussions outside court. On a lighter note, the same solicitor had her
photo taken with a mobile phone, passing through a check out in a supermarket
around the same time as our case was going on with a trolley full of alcohol. I hoped for better things from the Judge but I
was to be disappointed. The approach
both from the bench and from the HSE was adversarial. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it
was punitive. Not allowing these parents
to see their daughter for 8 weeks was frankly inexcusable and unreasonable. I can only offer the explanation for such
draconian measures as punitive. During that dreadful time, the mother started
to write to her daughter every day as a way of keeping herself sane. Little diaries of her day spiced with lovely drawings. Her days were largely uneventful since she
was poor, unemployed and without social support so it would be fair to say that
the letters were not exciting but they were moving in their own way. However, HSE social workers said they could
not see the point of them and since each and every one had to be translated
(something they determined themselves to be necessary) they wanted them to stop. My office had translated the first batch of letters
before they were delivered to the social workers by hand. We said we would be prepared to translate
them going forward without charge. This
was refused as we were clearly not trusted to translate accurately but quite
apart from this, they wanted everything to go through solicitors. Accordingly, at the very first opportunity,
the social workers applied to court seeking to limit the mother’s letters to
one letter a week. The Judge concurred
largely because of the inconvenience to the social services and the costs
involved (of translating). When the
mother sought telephone contact with her daughter, the cost of providing a
translator for such calls, to monitor what she would be saying to her daughter,
(something which social workers deemed necessary and which despite protests
went unchallenged by the Judge) was deemed to be too expensive by the court and
they denied her request. Of course the
Judge held out the possibility of giving the mother access, like a carrot
before a donkey, each and every time we appeared. The price for access was her positive cooperation
with social services. She said she was
engaging with them positively, they said she wasn’t. They maintained that she needed to deal with
her alcohol addiction however, they made absolutely no suggestions as to how
she was to do this. It was a game of cat and mouse. In an effort to assist her, my office went on
a hunt for a polish speaker qualified to conduct an addiction assessment as to
whether or not she had an alcohol problem. It was very clear to me, however,
that if any professional said that she did not have such addiction, social
services would not accept this since they had already determined that she did
as had the court. In fact that determination was made before I ever appeared in
the case. We did find someone who was
prepared to assist but such person was rejected by social services since they
maintained they did not know anything about this person and needed to
investigate. More delays. Meanwhile our client was quite literally
losing the will to live. We came up with
doctors who would conduct an assessment but they were rejected because HSE Social
Workers did not know them and had not vetted them despite their having
recognized medical qualifications. The
Judge never seemed to lose patience with the extraordinarily slow pace of
social services but he frequently, turned to us, the professionals acting for
the couple, asking if we were doing enough with a strong undertone that we were
not? Social workers, through their
representatives and directly outside court, would ridicule our efforts to find
professionals to work with this Polish speaking family and they would get away
with that, without offering any alternative other than they were looking into
it. Meanwhile these parents were not
seeing their child. Naturally, we
appealed at a very early stage. However,
because the District Court Judge would schedule the case every few weeks
offering the carrot that he would consider access on the next occasion, the
higher court refused to allow the appeal to go forward as a priority listing. Accordingly,
the appeal would simply take its place and might or might not have been heard
for some months. This meant that by the
time our appeal would be heard we would in fact have reappeared in the District
Court on the scheduled adjourned date. In that event, if the appeal was going
forward, the District Court would have had to suspend matters until the appeal
was heard. The child would, during that
time, continue in care without the parents seeing or being in contact with her
other than occasional letters. It was self defeating from our client’s point
of view even though it might have made legal sense. There is an enormous difference between the
resources available to Dublin practitioners in this type of situation and those
available to practitioners outside Dublin.
A clear consideration for the clients in this situation was the
possibility that the District Court would give access on the next occasion
before them, however, if the appeal went ahead that would not happen. At the time of our application to the Circuit
Court to shorten time to enable us to appeal, which was opposed by the way, we
were scheduled to be back before the District Court the following week. The Judge had offered the possibility of
access, something that was highlighted by the representatives of the HSE to the
Circuit Court even though they subsequently vehemently opposed it when we
appeared back before the District Court.
The Circuit Court therefore, could not see the
need to schedule the appeal quickly since they felt that it was likely that the
District Court would give access on our next appearance. They did not. None of the literature in this area recommends
a punitive approach and indeed, the HSE literature is far from such an approach. Worthy sentiments abound but the reality on
the ground is very different.
On an entirely different, though
nonetheless interesting, note, I was also struck by the extraordinary sexist
nature of these proceedings. It was as
if the father did not exist. His views
were never sought. From the outset his
drinking was deemed less of an issue without the slightest proof one way or the
other. No explanation was given for
this. He, clearly, had also been drinking on the date of the incident that led
to HSE getting involved. However,
despite the reality that his drinking did not appear to be much of an issue for
the social workers or indeed his involvement to any great extent in the need to
engage with them, he was never offered him the opportunity to visit with his
daughter on his own during that lengthy period by either the court or by social
services nor did they engage with him independently or hardly at all in
fact. I had secured independent
representation for him at an early stage but my colleague who agreed to act
without payment, frequently articulated to me that she might “as well not be
there”.
After two court appearances and when we had
become involved and were making life a tad uncomfortable in our estimation, the
HSE contacted the Gardai and asked them to follow up on their enquiries with
the parents. As a result the parents
were contacted by the Gardai at their home and asked to present for voluntary
questioning on a bank holiday weekend. At
a pre-arranged time both parents presented to the Gardai. The
father was released quite quickly but the mother was kept in for 4 hours. At one stage, she said she would leave and
they told her that if she did, they would arrest her. She was given no food or drink during that period
and had no idea what was going on. As
far as she could determine, they were ostensibly awaiting the arrival of an
interpreter. In the late afternoon of the Saturday, I
arrived at the police station enquiring about my client and demanding to see her. Within 5 mins she was let go however, the
official interpreter refused to tell me what was going on because he was
finished his engagement and I could not pay him for his time. Accordingly, we sat in my car while a Polish friend
interpreted what had happened to the mother in the police station. It
seems that in the course of the “voluntary” interview with the mother, the
police suggested amongst other things that she get a “real” solicitor and said
they could recommend someone to her. This, despite the fact that I had spoken
to them several times during the day as had my office. Nothing ever happened as a result of this
ordeal in the police station as everyone knew nothing ever would, since there
was insufficient evidence to charge these people with a crime of any sort. The purpose was to “frighten the horses” so
to speak, bring her to heel as she was perceived as “difficult” and her legal representatives,
even more so. What an abuse of our resources and the organs
of the state!
Eventually, after about 8 months and many
court appearances, the child was returned to her parents. During all this time and in the course of
several HSE reports before each and every court appearance, of which there were
many, the child would ask to be returned to her parents. Despite application
from us seeking a court appointed Guardian ad litem and despite offering the
names and qualifications of two such persons to the court, one a qualified Polish social
worker and the other not a Polish speaker but very familiar to the court and a
retired social worker , the court refused to make that appointment. Interestingly, at this point the children’s amendment
to the constitution had passed. Progress
was made in the case after a letter of complaint on behalf of the client about
the assigned social worker was sent to her superiors in the HSE and she was
removed. A different solicitor for the
HSE also appeared in the case. The
change of personnel made all the difference but the proceedings were still
largely conducted in an adversarial manner. I was struck that each and every time a social
worker professional would appear in court she, it was invariably she, would be
accompanied by one, and sometimes two others, to spend hours standing around
for no good purpose save, it would seem, to give moral support to each
other. You would have to wonder why
professionals would need that type of moral support to just do their job! One
would also have to wonder how, given the courts’ concern about money and indeed
the HSE’s stated financial concerns in this case, and at a time generally of
scant resources and increasing demand, the appearance of two or three social
workers, instead of one, hanging around the courts, is justified.
In the early stages of this case, I sought
the opinion of a Senior Counsel who specialises in child care cases. He advised me that in his years of reading
reports from the HSE in such cases, he had never seen one that was quite so
unnecessarily personal and downright objectionable as the first report in our
case. He was amazed and appalled. Indeed
it was the very personal nature of that report that determined the relationship
between my client and social services.
It would have been exceedingly difficult for her, having suffered the
pain and embarrassment of reading such a report and having it read, to have
struck up a rapport with the duty social worker. With the advent of a new social worker, the
reports became a lot less objectionable in their tone and content.
Because my experience, apart from my research,
of this area was limited to one case, I was loath to write about it eventhough
I was minded to do so for some time, however, I have come across a speech given
by Dr Carol Coulter to the Legal Aid Board on the 20th June, 2013 in
which she echoes many of my concerns.
This has somewhat empowered me, since Dr Coulter is the Director of the
Child Care Law Reporting Project. In the
course of that speech she said “Among the most common problems giving rise to
child neglect is the abuse of or addiction to alcohol and /or drugs. Usually
before the HSE seeks a Care Order the parents, commonly the mother, are given
an opportunity to seek treatment for addiction.
Often a Supervision Order is put in place.” In the instant case, the
parents were not given any opportunity to seek treatment for addiction, indeed ,no
suggestions were made as to what would constitute treatment until several court
appearances had been made and they had not seen their daughter for some
considerable time. Equally, the
suggestion of a Supervision Order never arose though it was proposed by us when
we arrived in the case and rejected. Furthermore, in the instant case only one
incident was actually brought to the attention of the HSE and arising out of
that incident no actual harm had come to the child nor was there any evidence
produced that she had ever been harmed. Of course, given the behaviour there
was a possibility and there was also some other causes for concern. However,
it is still a fact that the reports of the HSE describe the child as being in
good health, bright and well behaved. Now
I do acknowledge as I have previously that I did have concerns about the
drinking of this couple and certainly I don’t think that the HSE’s involvement
with the family was unwarranted as such however, the manner of involvement particularly
in the first 6 months or so was heavy handed, lacking compassion and extremely
adversarial. The method was familiar to
me. I went to boarding school. It was that old tried and tested ‘nun method’
of break their spirit first with the suggestion of possible kindness to come and
then come forward with a cookie, but only after the spirit is broken. At no
stage was the issue raised before the court of whether or not taking this child
into care was a proportionate response.
Even allowing for the possibility that it might have been felt it was,
how could it ever be justified that the parents did not see the child at all
for 8 weeks and their contact with her was limited to one letter a week. And what about the child –how was she damaged
by having no contact with her parents for that length of time? Social services
kept emphasising that she was completely understanding of what was happening as
she had excellent English but it never occurred to them that as a Polish child
who had spent the earlier part of her childhood in Poland, her emotional
language was going to be Polish. Dr
Coulter, in her talk, also asks the question
“Is a Care Order, for example, a
proportionate response to the problems these children have, or would their
needs be adequately met by a Supervision Order with directions for certain
changes to be made by the parents”? I
would contend that in this case a Supervision Order with such directions would
have been a proportionate response particularly after the initial emergency
order. I note that Dr Helen Buckley, a
professor of social work and social policy in Trinity College and a member of
Dr Coulter’s Oversight Board, stresses that the issue in child care proceedings
should “not be addiction per se but the impact of the addiction on the capacity
of the parents to care for their children”.
I would contend that in my case it was the addiction per se that was
considered both by the HSE and the Judge as being the issue and not the capacity
to parent as such. Dr Coulter comments
in her talk that she was struck by the number of cases “where the children
involved have little visibility in the proceedings”. Indeed!
I started off this article by commenting on
the fact that most of the people involved in these proceedings are from poorer
backgrounds and my only evidence for this was how few private practitioners are
involved in such cases. Like most
solicitors I suspect, I grew up in a fairly comfortable, middle class
family. However, I can remember some of
my friends, coming from professional backgrounds, arriving in school unwashed
and unfed due to parental drinking or serious parental depression and pill
popping. Occasionally, all three. I can remember the community regularly
sheltering those children when parents were not around. Drinking and drug abuse is certainly not
confined to the poor and marginalised.
It was not then and it is unlikely that it is now. Dr Coulter says “Because the majority of
children whose cases come before the child care courts are from poor and
marginalised backgrounds it can be difficult to hear their voices in the
process. The Legal Aid Board does
sterling work in representing the parents in care proceedings, but inevitably
the professionals in the HSE and their lawyers, who are in court every day of
the week, will be better able to articulate what they want from the court than
will people who may have difficulties with legal concepts or even the English
language”. Certainly the issue of
ensuring equality of arms between the parties is very important, however, it
does not go far enough in my opinion as it does not raise the issue of why so
few middle class families are before the courts in this area. Are they all so much better behaved now than
they were when I was a child, I doubt it.
I have raised the issue of over familiarity
between professionals, a cosy cartel.
Certainly, when I appeared out of nowhere, so to speak, I felt that
there was resentment. The apple cart was
upset. I don’t think I made that much of
a wave, certainly not what I would have liked to raise, if I had more resources
and a more resilient client who was prepared or able for the row, none the
less, I was treated like Attila the Hun.
I am very much of the opinion that these cases are frequently handled by
practitioners as a “matter of course” and I would be strongly of the view that
on both sides of the equation, the system would benefit from the injection of
some new blood. I do not advocate
replacing persons of experience as their experience is invaluable, just adding
to the pool. I also do not want my
remarks to be interpreted as criticism of legal aid who practise frequently
under trying and under resourced circumstances. I know that many of them have defended their
clients up to the High Court and the Supreme Court which is why I was able to
read judgements in these matters. As Dr
Coulter indicated they do a great job however, that does not take away from the
need and responsibility we have to examine their role and how best it might be
carried out.
I am an experienced collaborator and
mediator, however, at no stage was I ever engaged by any of the professionals
involved in this case in a truly problem solving way. Indeed my attempts and those of my office to
resolve problems in the case by offering help where we were in a position to
give help for example to translate letters thus saving time and expense,
actively seek Polish nationals who could assist with alcohol addiction
assessment or who could represent the child, were greeted with suspicion and
derision. The only time the
professionals on both sides met was outside of the court in uncomfortable and
frequently crowded circumstances not at all conducive to problem solving. Dr
Coulter suggests that “Where parents are involved in the process every effort
should be made to come to an agreement with them about the best way forward for
them and their children before orders are sought. Mediation clearly has a role here.” I
completely agree but my actual experience is very far removed from this. Even when more reasonable and problem solving
personnel presented in the case, it was
at best adversarial bargaining rather than true problem solving. I would suggest that unless social workers
involved in this area receive entirely different training than currently, quite
apart from the lawyers, it will be impossible to achieve this goal. It is not enough to send professionals on
weekend courses and expect them to change the habits of a lifetime. Change has to be far more fundamental than
that and it needs to start in University and continue all the way up.
Finally and because this is already a long
article, I might as well mention the issue of the foster parenting system as
well. Generally speaking, I support the idea
of foster care, particularly as an alternative to institutional care, however,
I do not support it as a career. We are
much given to extolling the virtues of those who agree to foster and that
lavish praise can often prevent us from asking some necessary questions. Should some families have three and four
children, as well as their own, at a time?
The fact that placements can be hard to find does not mean that we
should not ask that question. The
qualifications to foster need to be a lot more transparent and we need to
actively look for families to foster from particular ethnic backgrounds. In
the course of my proceedings I asked the court if the parents might have some
contact and communication with the foster parents as it appeared to me that there
was unnecessary animosity between those parties. Parents could have explained some of their
traditions directly to the foster parents (especially as the child was spending
Christmas with the foster family). This
would have helped with understanding all round.
Occasionally in the reports of the HSE the foster parents’ views were
quoted and frequently, they were very positional and unhelpful. Those comments, which should not I feel have
been presented in this manner or at all, caused a lot of misdirected anger
between the parents and the foster parents.
The Judge greeted my suggestion of communication between parents and
foster parents with some interest and said it might be considered though he
took no action as such. I could not but
note at the same time the expressions of the social workers in court, even the
ones just there for moral support, when the suggestion was made, which were
aghast and incredulous, followed by violent head shaking at such a preposterous
idea. Why should this idea be so
preposterous? I know there are certain instances when the last thing you would
want is contact between the parents and the foster parents due to the nature of
the case or the particular record of the parents but this was not one of those
cases and it was never even considered. Indeed when we finally did get access after
all those weeks and it was once a week for a few hours for quite some time, it
often had to be renegotiated because the date or time did not suit the foster
parents. Imagine the frustration if you
are waiting to see your child for those few hours once a week and then it is
changed. That was not just once, it was several times including significant
cultural days for the parents which were changed at the request of the foster
parents. The foster parents also
complained about having to travel to bring the child for access and how it
impacted on their other foster children, they had a few and their own children.
I realise that there are many wonderful
foster parents and I would be the first to acknowledge that without them our
child care system would grind to a halt but they are paid for their work albeit
that work is probably, frequently, very difficult. It seems worth mentioning that it was not
that difficult in this case as at all times the child was very well behaved and
had good English. Incidentally, the
foster parents forgot to collect the child from school twice precisely the
incident that gave rise to the involvement of the HSE in the first place. You have to laugh even if it not funny ha ha.
I frequently reflected during the case, and
many times since, the difference it would have made to my client had social
services considered using some of the money, that might be paid to foster
parents, to make my client’s life a
little easier, at least in the short
term . This family lived on very little
and had no idea of any social welfare entitlements that they might have
had. Accordingly, the mother had a
chronic medical condition which caused her pain and discomfort and which went
untreated as she could not afford the Doctor and had no medical card. She and
the father were constantly criticised both by the social workers and from the
bench because they had such poor English and seemingly had done little to
improve it, without any consideration of how this couple would or could avail
of English language classes and the practicalities of that for them. At no stage did anyone tell the mother how to
go about applying for a medical card and that was eventually left to my
office. Criticism was made, and indeed
written, in one of the reports about the child’s old fashioned clothes or that
the clothes were old and even that they were smelly, without balancing comment
about the resources available to this couple.
I wish I could end on an upbeat, funny or
positive note. The whole business was
grindingly sad and depressing and I can only thank my own friends who listened
to me rant and rave in the course of this case and put up with it. Otherwise, I would probably have become sad
and depressed myself.
