Guardianship of Infants and Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-30
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

I thank the Senator. Senator McCormack's amendment proposes to do two things. One is to change the six-month period in the legislation to three months. That is not necessary because there is already a statutory provision in the Bill that requires an application to be made as soon as practicable. The Bill says "as soon as practicable but not later than 6 months after the conviction". Senator McCormack wants to reduce that to "not later than 3 months". My concern about changing it to three months is that it will take time to put the evidence together to go to the District Court. There will need to be reports and evidence on the voice of the child and how it is to be progressed. If we change it to three months, which is a short period for an application like this, what will happen is that Tusla will go in early and look for an extension of time and just extend and extend it. We do not want that to happen. We want Tusla to bring the application as it will have been given a decent period in which to do so.
The second significant part of the amendment is that Senator McCormack proposes to remove the requirement on Tusla to believe the convicted guardian has failed in his or her duty towards the child concerned to such an extent that the safety or welfare of the child is likely to be prejudicially affected. As I said earlier, that is a statutory test that can be overcome fairly easily. However, if it is not in the Bill, I am advised the legislation will be constitutionally frail because people who are convicted guardians will argue this is all about adding on an additional penalty for them, that they have been convicted of murder or manslaughter, have been given their sentence and now an additional penalty is being put on them that they will automatically lose guardianship of their children. That is an argument they could make quite strongly if this provision, which says that Tusla must also be satisfied that the convicted guardian has failed in their duty towards the child, were not in the Bill.
I remember David French said publicly that of course it is a failing of duty to the child to kill the child's other guardian or parent. It is important to have it in the Bill because the last thing I want to happen is for this to be referred or for someone to challenge it. Let us be clear. People will challenge this because it is a significant measure to have guardianship rights removed or restricted, even if a person has been convicted of murder or manslaughter. People will fight this and we need to ensure it is rigorously constitutional. I believe this provision, which I want to retain, will ensure that.

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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