Sir, – I was surprised to read in an article on the Roma children's removal from their families, the statement from Ruadhán Mac Cormaic: "to all intents and purposes, pending the coming into effect of a law that relaxes the in camera rule, the family and child care courts are a closed domain of Irish life" (Home News, October 24th). This statement came 24 hours after The Irish Times had devoted most of a page to reporting that the third volume of case reports from the child care courts had just been published on the website of the Child Care Law Reporting Project, including details from several of the cases, bringing to 90 the total number of cases published.
The project was established under legislation designed to bring transparency to the workings of the child care courts, subject to protecting the anonymity of the children and families involved, a protection also contained in the recent changes to the in camera rule. The project’s reporters attend child care cases and publish reports on them on a dedicated website, www.childlawproject.ie, available to the public. – Yours etc.
CAROL COULTER,
Director,
Child Care Law Reporting
Project,
Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2.