Ms Catherine Ghent:

I would love the committee to sort out legal costs because the fact that a few have driven up costs extensively impacts on the perception of the kind of work I do and the kind of guardians I represent who are not getting paid that kind of money. If I wanted to do that, I would go off and do commercial law, so I would really like that to be sorted out.

In respect of qualifications, I am not qualified to attend a child in care review, look at documents and say what I think is best for a child. I am not qualified to go to a child who has been abused and approach them in a way that would not trigger trauma for them. My function as a lawyer is to take instructions and advocate before the court, but I really feel that I need someone who is properly qualified. In respect of very young children who cannot verbalise or children with disabilities who cannot verbalise, I would like someone who is qualified to interpret that. Clearly, that qualification exists. In respect of the point about getting reports, sometimes we have sought reports to see how we can best elicit the views of that child. It is very important that this function continues.

I accept the point about trying to get resources. It should not be a conflict because what is at stake in child protection is the fact that children could be sent home. They could be left in a situation where they continue to be abused or neglected. We know that ongoing abuse and neglect has consequences. It generates mental health problems and involvement with the criminal justice system, and that generates costs for us all. It needs to be run in parallel. We have gone into court saying that the child I represent needs this service and I make no apology for this. The issue relating to voluntary care is that there are no court proceedings in respect of it. We have seen the devastating consequences for people who are in care and are left for years with nobody looking at their case and nobody advocating for them. I take the point about resources, but we as a society need to say that we are going to provide resources, that where the risk is that a child could go home to suffer abuse we will make sure this child has the best possible chance, or where there is a proposal to take the child away from their parents when they should be at home, that they need somebody to advocate for that.

In respect of cross-examination, as I said at the outset, I represent the child through the guardian. If that was brought into the legislation in terms of the child being a party through the guardian, we would not have that discrepancy in terms of the child and parties having those full constitutional rights. They could not be denied if that was the case. In any event, the judgement of Ms Justice Baker, which said very clearly that they are entitled to those fair procedure rights, must be taken into account. We definitely welcome the greater certainty and would certainly be willing to work with any members afterwards to try to address this problem.

In respect of severe chastisement, clearly, the Oireachtas did significant and very valuable work in removing the defence of reasonable chastisement. This was in the context of an assault on a child. You could deal with a judge who does not have that experience or who has never had it happen to them and he or she cannot go there. Sometimes it is really easy to feel sorry for a parent because his or her circumstances may have led him or her to become a parent who cannot engage with his or her children in an appropriate way. This is why it is very important that we are able to come in on behalf of the child and say that.