Mr. Gary Broderick:

I am accompanied by our head of services, Ms Réidín Dunne. I thank the committee for inviting us to this important session. We welcome the committee’s sustained attention to the lived realities of families and communities most impacted and we appreciate the compassionate tone set in the opening statements at last week’s session on 25 September, especially the emphasis on dignity, partnership and the crucial need to listen to the voices of service users and front-line practitioners.

We are here today as representatives of SAOL, a front line women’s addiction service rooted in the north inner city. Every day we encounter the strength and resilience of women, including mothers, grandmothers, sisters and kinship carers, who provide stability, care and hope to families affected by drug use, often in the shadow of poverty, violence and exclusion. SAOL’s model reflects the care and complexity required by these families. Our integrated supports are practical and holistic. We provide a crèche for early-years development so mothers, grandmothers or other kin can access treatment and support with peace of mind. We offer a full-time, trauma-informed social worker to advocate for women and children and facilitate mother and baby groups that break isolation and build community. For example, we provide a mother and baby programme with the HSE Beag team from the north inner city. DAVINA, our domestic violence team, ensures women access help in ways that are safe, confidential and non-judgmental, challenging the silos that can keep addiction and domestic abuse apart in the system. We also support women whose children are being cared for by kin, assisting them with the grief and shame they experience as well as building their commitment and support for this new family arrangement.

As we have heard, the hidden harm framework is our national approach to protecting children impacted by parental drug use. It has helped social workers to recognise that harm can be present even where it is less visible, and has supported important collaboration between child welfare, addiction and mental health services. However, we ask the committee to examine the limitations of hidden harm more keenly. The literature warns us of the gendered nature of its implementation. In practice, it can intensify scrutiny and blame directed at mothers while under-engaging fathers. The work of Whitaker et alasks what is hidden in hidden harm. Along with the legal work of Rona Epstein’s input into the Howard League working papers, this acts as a starting point for our own thinking on this issue.

Hidden harm frameworks can sometimes overlook the influence of structural factors, such as poverty, racism, community violence and the stigmatising attitudes of professionals, each of which can deepen disadvantage and further marginalise families who are already vulnerable. This too can be mirrored in the short-term imprisonment of mothers in Ireland, which regularly results in abrupt disruptions to children’s lives, with children typically placed in kinship care. Research by the Irish Penal Reform Trust and international studies highlight that maternal imprisonment is especially destabilising because mothers are most often the primary caregivers. This sudden separation can result in children experiencing grief, anxiety, trauma and disrupted attachment.

Kinship care, while often the preferred alternative to State care, can still be fraught with uncertainty, financial strain and emotional upheaval for children and their relatives, particularly when placements are made hastily or without adequate support. The children’s human rights, especially their right to family life and to be cared for by their parents, as guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, are often put at risk. The Irish system could be criticised for inadequately considering the child’s best interests in sentencing decisions for mothers, and for not providing consistent policy measures or supports that could safeguard these rights when short prison sentences break up family life. Indeed, Rona Epstein argues that courts are legally required to balance the needs of the child against the seriousness of the offence.

Therefore, as the committee members reflect on the improvements needed at the intersection of kinship care, family support and drug policy, we respectfully request that the committee would recognise and resource the practical, community-rooted family supports, like those offered by SAOL and kinship carers across the country; mandate more robust, gender-sensitive and anti-poverty approaches to both research and practice, including a review of hidden harm and professional training in trauma and implicit bias; examine, if this is within the committee’s remit, the sentencing of mothers and the impact of sentencing on children; and meaningfully involve service users and people with living and lived experience.

We would like to commend the invaluable advocacy and expertise represented in this room today, including our friends and partners at EPIC, which is supporting children and young people in care, and also Fiona Kearney, Jacqueline Williamson and Laura Dunleavy, given the wonderful work they do. I again thank the committee for the invitation and for its commitment to evidence, partnership and listening to the families whose lives and futures are most affected by the policies. We look forward to the questions and to working together for progressive and inclusive change.