Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Section 17 of the Child Care Act 1991 provides that the District Court may grant an interim care order in respect of a child on foot of an application by the HSE. The order may be made with or without parental consent in accordance with the section. The application may arise in circumstances where a child is being cared for under an emergency care order, often following a decision by the Garda to remove a child to safety under section 12 of the 1991 Act. An interim care order may also arise as a result of an application by the HSE to take a child into its care in circumstances where there is an immediate and serious risk to the health or welfare of that child. Before granting an interim care order, the judge must be satisfied that an application for a care order in respect of the child has been or is about to be made.

The HSE recently made a submission to my Department concerning the need to increase the duration of an extension to an interim care order to 29 days. The submission set out the practical rationale for seeking to increase the period of an extension to an interim care order. It also set out a strong case for urgent legislative change.

In its submission, the HSE highlighted the difficulties it had been experiencing due to the necessity of having to return to the District Court every eight days for extensions to interim care orders, including increased stress for all parties arising from the frequency of court appearances, the difficulties for social work staff in forming working relationships with children and their families because of the frequency of adversarial court appearances, the amount of social workers' time taken up by court work, and increased legal costs for the HSE, families and guardians ad litem. In essence, the current application of section 17(2) of the 1991 Act is absorbing considerable court time and resulting in valuable social work time being expended in preparing for court cases and in attending court hearings.

The HSE submission made a comprehensive and convincing case and I am, therefore, introducing the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2013 to make the amendments that are urgently required to the 1991 Act in that regard. In addition, the effect of the proposed amending legislation will be to facilitate, as far as possible, applications for orders or extensions to orders to be heard on the same day each week by the courts. This would assist the courts and the HSE in processing these applications and reduce the number of court appearances for all parties involved.

I will turn to the principal provisions of the Bill. Section 1 amends section 17(2) of the 1991 Act. Section 17(2)(a) of that Act allows for an interim care order for a period not exceeding 28 days in the absence of parental consent. Section 1(a) of the Bill will amend section 17(2)(a) by substituting "twenty-nine days" for "twenty-eight days".

Section 17(2)(b) of the Act allows for an interim care order to exceed 28 days with parental consent. Section 1(a) of the Bill will amend that section by substituting "twenty-nine days" for twenty-eight days". Section 1(b) of the Bill will amend section 17(2) of the Act by substituting "where an extension is to exceed twenty-nine days" for "where an extension is to exceed eight days" in order to provide that an application to extend an interim care order can be granted for a period of up to 29 days without parental consent.

Section 2 of the Bill is a standard provision providing for the Short Title and collective citation.

I have introduced this amending Bill as a matter of priority. Its effect is that, on enactment, an interim care order or an extension to an interim care order, in the absence of parental consent, may be granted for a period not exceeding 29 days.

I commend the Bill to the House and I look forward to hearing the Senators' opinions.