Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, has been granted a 15-year care order for a boy born in 2014 to a young woman at the centre of a controversy about her right to have an abortion.
The judge made the care order until the boy, who is now almost three, turns 18 in 2032 at a hearing to review a two-and-half year care order which he had made for the child in November 2014.
The mother, Ms Y, was an asylum seeker who unsuccessfully sought an abortion after arriving in Ireland pregnant as a result of an alleged rape.
The judge heard evidence from a Tusla social worker that the boy’s mother has had no contact or made any inquiries about him since he went into foster care on foot of the original care order.
A solicitor for Tusla told the court that it was applying for a care order until the child turns 18 on the basis that the child’s mother had not expressed any wish to make contact with the child.
The solicitor for the mother did not object to the care order being granted with reviews, at the hearing which was also attended by a solicitor for a Guardian ad Litem.
The judge said he was satisfied on foot of the evidence presented to him that the child’s health, welfare and development would be impaired or neglected if he did not make the care order.
He noted the child’s mother was not in a position to provide the protection and care he needed and she had been in a difficult situation when he made the original care order and that had not changed.
Almost three
“He is now almost three years old and his mother’s circumstances have not changed to allow her to engage with the child,” said the judge as he granted the lengthy care order to Tusla.
The toddler’s mother, Ms Y, a young immigrant, had arrived in Ireland in March 2014 seeking asylum and became distressed when she discovered she was pregnant during a health screening.
Ms Y stated that she had been raped in her own country and sought an abortion but was told it might be difficult to travel to the UK because of her status as an asylum seeker in Ireland.
She was provided with counselling but became increasingly distressed when it became clear she was unable to travel for an abortion due to the costs involved and the restrictions on her right to travel.
The young woman stated that she was suicidal and was referred to the HSE psychiatric services who assessed her as being suicidal under the provisions of the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Act.
However by that stage the woman was at 24 weeks’ gestation and it was deemed too late to abort the pregnancy despite the fact that she was deemed suicidal under the provisions of the legislation.
The woman gave birth to a boy by caesarean section in August but the child had health issues and remained in hospital for a period before the HSE got a care order and placed the child with a foster family.