Ms Karen Kiernan:

One Family is Ireland’s leading organisation for one-parent families, providing services to people parenting alone, those sharing parenting and those going through family transitions. Our policy work is rooted in the extensive family support work we have provided over the past 40 years. We welcome the heads of this Bill as it is long overdue and badly needed to support the thousands of families in need of family law services every year. The Bill attempts to reflect the realities that many children and their parents experience in Ireland today and to provide safety and security for them. We refer the committee to our written submission for an overview of all our recommendations, but today I will focus our comments on issues relating to Part 7 – guardianship, custody and access, Part 8 – safeguarding interests of children and Part 9 – making parenting orders work.

We are very familiar in One Family with the practical, financial and legal challenges faced by mothers and fathers going through the family law courts in regard to separation, custody, access, maintenance, domestic violence and related issues. We have been particularly concerned with the lack of information and services available to family law courts when they attempt to make orders in regard to these issues. In 2009, we undertook research into the need for child contact centres in Ireland. These are safe, neutral and child-centred services where children can spend time with their non-resident parent. They are widespread outside Ireland and are used by courts, social services and families as safe places for high-conflict families, to facilitate children having an ongoing relationship with the parent with whom they do not live, who is often, but not exclusively, their father.

Following this research, we received funding for a two-year pilot project which we delivered in partnership with Barnardos in the greater Dublin area. These centres offered family and risk assessments, court reports, contact services, including handovers, supported contact and supervised contact, family support services including, counselling, play and art therapy for children, parent mentoring and mediated parenting plans. These services cost approximately €200,000 per year and have closed due to lack of funding. The independent evaluation of this project was launched 10 days ago at an event attended by five members of the judiciary - from the District, Circuit and High Court - a large number of legal practitioners and members of the Law Society of Ireland and representatives of family support services. There was overwhelming support for the work that had been done and the need for it to continue.

The key policy issues that have arisen through this work were also published last week and these are extremely relevant to the children and family relationships Bill, because we believe this is the opportunity to get this right for children in the future. Committee members should have received a copy of the publication by email, but we are happy to provide it to anyone who has not received it.

Currently, family law courts are making critical decisions about children and families in a vacuum. They are unable to make evidence-based decisions, unlike other branches of law. Irish family law courts do not have independent, quality information on the families presenting to them, because unlike other jurisdictions we do not have a court welfare system. This must change. It is not possible, for example, for head 32, best interests of the child, or head 63, enforcement orders, to function as envisaged if courts are not resourced with relevant background information on the family. Children are having unsafe and unsuitable contact with their non-resident parent or other family members on a daily basis in Ireland because courts are ordering it. This may be because there is a strong pro-contact assumption inherent in family law, because courts do not have full information on the extent and impact of domestic violence, addiction and mental health issues, because parents may not recognise the negative impact of violence on their children or their ability to parent or because courts do not have anywhere else to refer parents to for support.

What are the solutions and what can be done about this? The provision of a court welfare system must be included in this legislation, as family assessments are the basis for making evidence-based decisions in regard to families. It is also necessary that courts and social services collaborate much more closely to ensure the safety of children. A range of appropriate family support services, including child contact centres, to which families can be referred by the courts, must be nominated in the legislation. Children’s voices and their best interest may be more appropriately determined through external independent services, as is facilitated through child contact centres. The legislation should be clearer around domestic violence and abuse and the required support systems. It must be clear on the range, the benefits and limitations of family supports. There is a serious impediment to people with low incomes accessing ancillary family supports and resourcing needs to be looked at in the future.

Inclusion of these provisions in this legislation is just one of the steps required to ensure safety for children in private family law proceedings and to avoid repeated court visits for high-conflict families. We estimate that each of the 17 child and family agency areas could have a comprehensive, trained and accredited child contact centre service which could offer family assessments, contact services and family support services for a total cost of €3.5 million per year. We believe this is excellent value for money, particularly compared to legal or court based supports. This would be a defined rather than open funding stream.

I thank the committee for its time and we welcome questions.