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THERE HAS BEEN a significant recommendation for children’s voices to be heard more clearly within the justice system to tackle parental alienation.
Parental alienation is where one parent attempts to alienate the other from their children to sever the relationship between them.
New research has shown that a “narrow range of interventions” have been done by Irish courts, in cases where alienation may be present.
The research, commissioned by the Department of Justice, also found that Irish courts do not have a definitive description of parental alienation.
A number of policy recommendations have been made, by the Department for Justice, around the voice of children within the family courts and additional training.
A research report and a policy paper, published by the Minister yesterday, made a number of recommendations to tackle parental alienation in Ireland.
The department recommended that children should be heard in family courts as “the weight that is attached to children’s views” in court can have a major impact on the claims of alienation.
The recommendation suggests that by including the voice of the child it ensures they are “heard and considered” and that it will be the responsibility of a working group to review and develop methods to take on the guidance.
Chairperson of Alienated Children First, an advocacy group who represent alienated children and their parents, Janice O’Neill said: “We are generally pleased to see that progress is being made on protecting children in high conflict situations including parental alienation.”
450 responses were received from a public consultation, including 19 interest groups, who expressed that family law services must be improved, the children’s voice must be included and the introduction of training in family law is required for justice professionals.
The majority (73%) of organisations that the department consulted with did not call for legislative change as new laws ran the risk of increasing the litigiousness in cases which are “already highly contentious”, according to Treoir, an information service for unmarried parents.
The policy paper published by the Minister also outlined that additional supports such as the right to protection and safety are required and recommended additional training.
Alienated Children First echoed calls for additional training particularly due to a number of other jurisdictions exploring how best to include the voice of the child to avoid manipulation in conflicting cases.
Harris said the findings “point to the need for additional research” on, amongst other things, the impact of family breakdown on children-parent relationships and children’s views of the family law system.
O’Neill said that regulation and training means it will ensure that the authentic voice of the child is protected and reported.
The Justice Minister said the recommendations contained in the policy paper “underpin the need to see the matter through a broader family justice lens”.
“This is about placing children at the heart of the system which is further enabled to hear them, about supporting and training legal professionals to better understand and support families with their needs and improving what we know about family justice through better data collection,” Harris added.
A spokesperson for the ACF said: “We look forward to information, training and support on parental alienation being rolled out for families dealing with these situations and their incorporation into the Department of Justice strategy and practice.”
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Bonuses all round for the Irish Water top brass. Hundreds of millions being handed over to them and they can’t fix the simplest of things. Can you just imagine handing over your hard earned money to those wasters?
@David Corrigan: we do already hand our hard earned money over to them
@CP: True CP. But they wanted more.
@David Corrigan: they are funded by central exchequer , your taxes, not a magic money tree.
@David Corrigan: you do that with each pay packet…
@David Corrigan: Irish water is funded through the Exchequer via General Taxation, SF and other opposition parties pressured the government into it. In fairness Irish water, they have being in exsistance 12 years and have got through a huge amount of work. They took over a national service with a crumbling infrastructure. A infrastructure was was long ignored and underfunded by every county council in the country. I’d say the money spent by IW over the last 10 years if far higher than the previous 50 years before that.
@David Corrigan: hi David, hate to be a bore but could you detail your simple fix and associated costs and timeliness for completion please.
@Liam23: What utter BS. MM, then leader of the opposition, called for the suspension of water charges in exchange for a confidence and supply agreement with FG in 2016. Nothing to do with SF or ‘ other opposition parties’. As usual every siht show, in every sector, in this country is down to FFG.. nobody else.
Shush with these sort of articles, the public have bought into our “it’s all the farmers fault” mantra, they don’t need to know it their own waste their drinking.
@P. V. Aglue: “An ecosystem is a relatively self-contained community of interacting organisms and the environment they live in, and interact with. There is a flow of energy within an ecosystem and nutrients within it are recycled. There are both living (biotic) components and non-living (abiotic)components within an ecosystem”
2030??
Are they kidding?
This is a serious risk to public health.
Newport, Co. Mayo, has increased in population, has more “bums on seats” and the raw sewage is piped out a short distance into Clew Bay only for the tides and currents to bring it all floating back up the Blackoak river every day. On a high tide the discharge bubbles up the drains in the streets and houses near the water and I don’t need to describe the putrid odour. Fishing, swimming or kayaking is impossible.
She said 16 towns and villages emitting raw sewage every day in Ireland. I think she’s taking the p is, there are that many in every county. But they’ll keep blaming the farmers a handy scrap goat.There are 9 villages within 10 miles from me, 3 of them have treatment plants, the rest store it up and let it off by night, or some of them at high tide
@Max: It’s the chemicals that seep into the water, pray tell how that is anything but farmers’ fault?
@Brian D’Arcy: there’s more nitrogen in the atmosphere than there’ll ever be in water
@P. V. Aglue: does it poison waterways while suspended in the atmosphere?
The state can pollute to it’s hearts content but there’s blue murder if the farmer puts a foot wrong. It’s high time the state officials got the same treatment the farmers have been subjected to for many years now.
Green party taxes….the hypocrisy!
How many workers does it take to change a light bulb? None. We have an essential street light out of order for 3 years in Dublin. Where are our taxes really going?
Also in skerries. Half a km right of shenick. There’s a stream there. It’s awful smelly.
@Argus Romsworth: and loughrea in Co. Galway. Raw sewerage flowing into the local river for the last 60 years and from the “new” treatment plant since it was opened. How many more are omitted from the list?
Imagine the private sector faced such scrutiny.
Imagine fining yourself? Which is what we are essentially doing. How quickly would you change your ways? If UE can’t be bothered to fix these problems in a timely manner, then I’m all for using my tax monies to employ someone who can. It’s like the Metro, China said they would build and manage it, but we refused. If we can’t do something ourselves without wasting billions on it, it might be time to hold up our hands and admit defeat, then commission somebody who can get the job done.
How can I swim in the rivers with disgusting sewage!? A disgusting disgrace
Not to mention what comes out of Mary Lou !
@Dave c: Yawn, must have taken you all day to think that up.
Problem all across Europe. I saw raw sewerage coming out of the overflows on the street in Lanzarote while I was there a few weeks ago
@Peter Byrne: I think that was the volcanic Ash.. the people are very clean in lanzarote
Longford , includes pharmaceutical waste
Stopping the raw sewage from Leinster House should be the priority!
The usual NGO mouth pieces have traps sewn shut today.
Blame climate change that’s the green media answer to issues they report on, a but the green politicians tend to be looking the other way on this one.
Government is the problem
Some KIP
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