Ireland should follow the lead of other European countries by granting more robust legal rights to grandparents, family law expert Geoffrey Shannon has said.
He said children of separated parents were losing out on contact with grandparents because of cumbersome Irish legislation.
"There is a big trend across the EU of granting more robust rights to grandparents. It is now being viewed from the perspective of the child," he said.
Mr Shannon called for an overhaul of the legislation that gives grandparents the right to apply for leave to seek access to grandchildren. The option was made available in the Children's Act 1997, but many grandparents do not know it exists and the Courts Service said it did not know how many applications came from grandparents.
"It's quite a cumbersome procedure," Mr Shannon said. "It would appear that it is overly bureaucratic. There is a need to make it more coherent."
He said that parents had two opportunities to object to a grandparent's application, as the grandparent first had to seek permission from the court to apply for access, before making the application. Mr Shannon said grandparents should be allowed to go through the first stage in the process without putting other parties on notice.
Una Hayden, campaigner for grandparents' rights, said many people were reluctant to go to court to seek access to their grandchildren because of cost, bureaucracy and the embarrassment of having to go to court to see their grandchildren.
"They don't want to do anything that would make things worse for anyone. It's a very big problem."
She said there was also the fear that the other parent would say that the child did not want to see them, after they had won access.
Ms Hayden was involved in the support group Grandparents Obliterated, but it was disbanded two years ago because of the lack of funding and time to run it.
"We couldn't cope with the thousands of phone calls. I'm just an ordinary housewife," she said. However, she still gets one or two calls every day from grandparents seeking help, particularly at times such as First Communion.
Ms Hayden called for the establishment a State-funded support group for grandparents in this situation. "They have no voice," she said. "They need a professionally-run support group to give them advice and just listen to them."
She advised people who were banned from seeing their grandchildren to write, but not post, cards and letters to them. "The children will make up their own minds about it and if they come looking for them someday, they will be able to give them something. "But for the older grandparents there's the worry that they will die before they make contact. It's very sad."
Treoir, the group for unmarried parents, has produced a booklet for grandparents in this situation. Being There For Them can be downloaded from the website www.treoir.ie
