Dr. Róisín O'Shea:

First of all, our constitutional situation is not quite in keeping with the UN convention. Under that convention, children in this State have a right for their views to be heard if they wish their views to be heard and not if we can ascertain them. It does not relate to the capacity of the child but to his or her desire for his or her views to be heard. A sanction note has already been sent to Ireland stating we are not compliant with the convention. The issue is in respect of how we hear the voice of the child. I brought ten Canadian judges to a conference here chaired by Mr. Justice McKechnie in 2010. There were also four American judges and a couple from New Zealand.

The Canadian judges, in particular, were shocked that Irish judges were hearing the views of the child without appropriate training. Judges in Canada are required to have continuous professional training every year on how to hear the voice of the child, how to know if there is estrangement and how to know if there is parental alienation and coaching going on. The judges I interviewed often stated they were parents. That is not the answer. Being a parent does not make a person best placed to hear the views of a child and the complexity that may be involved.

There is a difference in the area of private family law. In that context, if there is legal aid, the report is paid for, to an extent. Ms Nuala Jackson, in the Visitors Gallery, will confirm that. If a person does not have legal aid I am seeing delays being caused. I will be publishing on this later. Those delays may be being caused strategically because people know the cost of these reports is so great. The delays are still very long even going through legal aid. I have seen what happens then, as recently as Monday. Judges are hearing cases where months have gone by without a non-resident parent seeing the child. The judge then finds there is estrangement because the child has not seen the father - invariably it is the fathers, unfortunately - for six, seven or eight months. It is stated that it is not possible to go back to normal parenting then and estrangement will have to be the starting point. Our screwed-up system has done that. It is not even the parents themselves.