I was pleased to see Eilis O’Hanlan in the Sunday Independent strongly challenging
the suggestion made by Ireland’s special rapporteur for children's protection,
Dr Geoffrey Shannon, that any person should have the right to apply to a court to
have a child taken into care.
My view is that allowing any member of the public the right
to initiate proceedings would inevitably result in public services having to
respond to some cases that should never have been drawn into the care net. That
would mean that significant resources (fostering, assessment etc.) were diverted away from more needy
children.
Ireland’s child protection institutions have experienced more than their fair share of
problems in recent years but a free-for-all in child protection is not the solution. It could have
disastrous results.
