Critical decisions about child-parent arrangements are being taken in family courts without any independent assessments of children's needs, according to the IMPACT trade union.
In the absence of independent reports, judges are being driven to take "inappropriate and desperate" measures to get family information which could help inform decisions, according to Mr Patrick O'Dea, PRO of the Probation and Welfare branch of the union.
Mr O'Dea was introducing a document on a court welfare service produced by his branch of the union. It proposes the re-establishment of a court welfare service to the family courts at all levels, as a civil family section within the Probation and Welfare Service, independently administered and resourced. The document was launched by independent Senator Mary Henry.
Mr O'Dea said the Law Reform Commission recommended that a probation and welfare officer be available to every court determining child custody. Such a service was provided for in a series of Acts dealing with divorce and child protection since 1995, but no provision was made in the Probation and Welfare Service for the resources to deal with such cases.
When family law cases first started to come before the District Courts, judges often asked probation officers for assistance in assessing families, which led to an informal family law service in the District Courts from the Probation and Welfare Service.
Probation officers' reports in family law cases assess the overall family situation and make recommendations to the court on possible arrangements relating to issues such as custody and access. They are based on a four- to six-week evaluation of the family, with contacts with the family, other professionals, relatives and people such as child-minders, all with the consent of the family. The emphasis is on the needs of the children, according to IMPACT.
However, with the growth both in family law cases and in criminal work this informal service became overwhelmed, and, according to the union, in the absence of additional resources being made available probation officers were withdrawn from family work to concentrate on their statutory obligations in criminal cases. This has left no service to the courts to assess the background of children and their families in family law cases.
In the absence of reports from probation and welfare officers, judges are being forced to resort to various practices in order to try to assess the families concerned, Mr O'Dea said.
"The most abhorrent of these practices is referral for report on spurious grounds to child protection agencies. The referrals are made without grounds of suspicion of child neglect, abuse or cruelty, for the sole purpose of eliciting family information to inform the court's decision. This is an abuse of the Child Care Act 1991.
The union's appeal for a properly-funded family law court welfare service received support yesterday from the Labour Party, the Family Law and Civil Legal Aid committee of the Law Society and the Irish Association of Social Workers.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice told The Irish Times that the Minister had established an expert group to examine the Probation and Welfare Service, and all aspects of service delivery to the courts, including in the area of family law. "The Minister awaits the group's report and is not in a position to comment further at this stage."