Sharon Keogan (Independent)

I rise today to highlight a deeply troubling issue in our family courts, namely, the misuse of the concept of parent alienation. Yesterday, I attended a presentation by the Alliance of Birth Mothers Campaigning for Justice. What I heard was harrowing. They told us how parent alienation is being used as a legal weapon and a tactic to dismiss mothers' allegations of child abuse against fathers. Instead of protecting children, this concept brands protective mothers as manipulators and transfers custody to the very parent accused of abuse. This is not just anecdotal. Advocacy groups and research confirm that the in camera rule, that is, the secrecy surrounding Family Court proceedings, enables this injustice. Women and children are being silenced. As the alliance said, there is an unbroken chain of State abuse that did not end with the closure of the last mother and baby home. That is a damning indictment of our system. Our Government must act. We need urgent reforms to remove parent alienation from influencing custody decisions and to shine a light on what happens behind closed doors. The in camera rule has to go. It is time to follow the UK, where transparency reforms allow journalists to report on family court cases under strict anonymity safeguards, restoring public confidence and accountability. We must also challenge parent alienation itself, which is a concept with a weak scientific basis, absent from the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5, and not accepted as a clinical diagnosis. However, speakers have pointed out that Tusla has adopted it uncritically, thereby forcing vulnerable children into the custody of abusive parents. This is an appalling failure and must stop. I call on the Minister for justice to begin dismantling the in camera rule and to bring transparency to the family court and accountability to our social services. Families deserve justice, not secrecy.