Guardianship of Infants and Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-30
============================================================

Maria McCormack (SF), Labour Panel

I welcome the Minister back to the Upper House for the final Stages of this debate. Once again, I welcome David French and his family to the Chamber. I will make a brief contribution because Senator Keogan has covered the issue in a lot of detail. I will discuss our amendments Nos. 16 and 19. Amendment No. 16 ensures that all relevant parties are notified of court applications affecting a child, including the next of kin of a deceased guardian. It is similar to Senator Keogan's amendments. It is important that the family of the guardian who has been killed is made a notice party to these proceedings. They have a clear and legitimate interest in the child's welfare and that role should be recognised, respected and reflected in this process. I ask that, in some form, the Minister looks to see if he can accept one of these amendments to help strengthen the role of the family.
On amendment No. 19, this section, as it stands, gives the Child and Family Agency full discretion in dealing with convictions that occurred before the Act commenced. Without strengthening this provision to include other parties, as my amendment seeks to do, there is a real risk that applications will not be brought. This amendment recognises that guardians ad litem , other guardians and relatives should have a role in prompting action where it is in the child's best interest. That aspect, that it is in the child's best interest, is most important. Given Tusla's concerns about resourcing and identifying historical cases, it is essential that those closest to the child can bring matters forward and ensure appropriate applications are made to the court. I ask the Minister to consider those amendments.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-30