Introduction
We publish here the first volume of child care reports for 2026, based on attendance in District Court child proceedings during the first half of the year. There are 106 reports, ranging in length from the several thousand words to a few hundred.
They cover the range of child protection applications under the Child Care Act, from Tusla/the Child and Family Agency seeking full care orders for children deemed to be at risk of abuse or neglect, to interim care orders and extensions of these orders, as well as reviews of children in care, re-entries of their cases when issues arise, applications to the court from guardians ad litem relating the needs of the children in care and, from time to time, the examination of legal issues that arise in the course of proceedings.
Once again, we see the problems caused for children by parental drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence and parents’ mental health issues. Parental disability, including both mental health issues and cognitive disability, and the absence of one or both parents due to death or imprisonment, both feature in a number of cases.
However, what has been noticeable in this volume of cases, when compared with previous volumes, has been the number of cases where finding a suitable placement for the child has been the main issue. The children involved usually have behavioural problems that make it impossible for them to live at home or in regular foster care, though in some cases children are in unregulated placements because no foster placement can be found for them.
This issue was at the centre of 17 cases, one in six of the total number of reports. In most, the child was in an unregulated “Special Emergency Arrangement”, from which they frequently absconded, placing themselves at risk of criminality and sexual exploitation. Often these children had been deemed eligible for Special Care, but no place was available. One pre-teen child was a “social admission” to a hospital, because no suitable place could be found for him, and he could not live at home because of severe behavioural issues. Judges repeatedly expressed their concern, alarm and distress at the apparent intractability of the problem.
These issues will be examined in more detail in an analytical report of all the cases covered in our two-year contract with the Department of Children, Disability and Youth, and will be published, along with the next volume of reports, covering the remainder of 2026, early in 2027.