Tusla must pay some legal costs in child protection case

A hearing to decide whether the State should pay costs for parents in a child-protection case through the Legal Aid Board or through the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) has been held at the Dublin District Child Care Court.

Judge Brendan Toale ruled some of the costs, estimated in the region of €3,000, should be paid by the agency.

The hearing on costs, held on Thursday, took 2½ hours and involved two barristers, one for each of the parents, and a solicitor for the Child and Family Agency. The bill for this was estimated at €1,000.

The Legal Aid Board sought its costs from the Child and Family Agency for representing parents whose baby was taken into care for seven days under an emergency care order earlier this year.

Concerns for child’s welfare

The parents moved to Ireland from another jurisdiction just before the baby was born and it initially lived with them.

But concerns were raised about the child’s welfare by authorities in the country they moved from, and the emergency care order was triggered.

When that seven-day order ran out, an application for an interim care order was made under section 17 of the Child Care Act 1991.

But social workers from the parents’ previous country of residence were unable to travel for the hearing so their reports could not be used in evidence.

The application was rejected by the court due to insufficient evidence.

The baby was returned to its parents, and appeal proceedings were taken at the Circuit Court, which resulted in a short supervision order.

The agency simultaneously continued with an application at the District Court to take the baby into permanent care, under section 18 of the legislation.

The hearing was to be held in September but, on the day, the agency withdrew its application.

Giving his decision on the District Court costs, Judge Toale referred to a 2015 Supreme Court ruling.

It stipulated costs should not be routinely awarded to parents in child-protection cases and it outlined various conditions under which parents’ costs should be paid.

The judge said the Supreme Court conditions only applied in cases when parents were “unsuccessful” in court.

It also stipulated “mere reunification” of the family did not mean the parents had been “successful”, he said, because often the agency had carried out considerable work with parents so that a child could be returned to them.

Case adjourned

The judge found the baby’s parents had been unsuccessful in the emergency order, and did not meet the Supreme Court conditions, so their legal teams should not be awarded costs.

But the parents were successful in the section 17 application, so the teams should be awarded costs for that.

He reserved his decision on the section 18 application. He said he could not ascertain whether the parents had been successful or unsuccessful and he would have to hear further evidence.

The key issue was when the agency came to the decision to withdraw the case and whether they could have come to a decision sooner, he said.

A solicitor for the agency said he was anxious to deal with the matter “as cost efficiently as possible”.

“My client is going to have to engage with the Legal Aid Board regarding the wisdom of these ongoing costs proceedings,” he said.

The case was adjourned to December.