Dr. Kenneth Burns:

Dr. Shannon made it clear that we needed the new legislation to pull together. Under the Child Care Act judges have discretion over whether they hear from children. At that basic level it is inconsistent with the amendments via Article 42A. It is clear where we need greater consistencies in terms of the model. We have the contribution of Dr. Coulter's research. Our research is to clarify that we do not have one childcare proceeding model. We have a continuum of proceedings some of which are highly adversarial, some are a bit of a hybrid model and some tend more towards the inquisitorial model. We just need to make a decision.

There is a great opportunity in the ongoing review of the Child Care Act 1991 in the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. A Supreme Court judgment found that childcare proceedings should be an inquiry into the circumstances of the child. That is not really what happens in highly adversarial cases. I can understand why certain proceedings need to be highly adversarial when facts are contested. However, for the majority of cases we need to have some form of process that has alternative dispute resolutions where communication is clear.

The solicitors and social workers we interviewed were concerned about the damaged relationships between Tusla, social workers and parents when the process becomes highly adversarial. Social workers are working to support families over a long period, building those relationships. If a child needs to be removed or there is a question over a child needing to be removed and if that ends in a very adversarial process, those relationships are damaged very quickly because an adversarial process is about testing the evidence. The evidence from the people we have interviewed so far is that that may not be the best way to go. The children get lost in that and it becomes a matter of who wins, which cannot be good. We need to pause. At a minimum we cannot have many different systems; we must have one system. In whatever we decide, it must be child and parent friendly. We must find a way in which we can have conversations that keep the child's interests at the centre.