Jennifer Kline is Research Assistant with the Centre for Disability Law and Policy at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
The Centre for Disability Law and Policy at NUI Galway recently published a report on access to justice for children with cognitive disabilities in Ireland. The report was written as part of a project, co-funded by the Fundamental Rights & Citizenship Programme of the European Union, on ‘access to justice for children with mental disabilities’. In the initial project proposal the term ‘mental disabilities’ was used which includes children with intellectual disabilities, children with psychosocial disabilities and/or mental health disabilities. This report on Ireland uses the term cognitive disabilities instead as that is a more acceptable and familiar term in Ireland than the term ‘mental disabilities.’
The focus of this report and project was to uncover barriers in Irish law and policy affecting access to justice of children with cognitive disabilities in three main areas of their lives:
Our report examined existing literature related to access to justice for children with cognitive disabilities in Ireland and also information gleaned from interviews with legal professionals, social workers and professionals in the NGO realm, along with parents of children with cognitive disabilities. Some of the most concerning information came from these interviews with the parents.
Interviews with Parents of Children with Cognitive Disabilities
The five parents interviewed consistently spoke of difficulties in accessing the services their child needed to receive meaningful education, healthcare and victim support. Many parents experienced retaliatory actions when they made complaints against a state body for failure to deliver services. Two parents were told that care proceedings could be instituted in cases where the parents were being actively denied the services that would allow for proper care of the child and one parent was threatened with a lawsuit. Parents also spoke of increasing barriers to accessing services and inclusive environments as the child grew older: “When your child is small and cute and appealing people will help you. When your child reaches teenage years and is telling professionals to fuck-off they don’t want to know.” Although this is a small sample size, it is worrying that parents seeking to remove barriers faced by their children often face further barriers imposed by state bodies as a result. Furthermore, whenever we have presented this finding to groups in Ireland we have heard further stories recounting similar barriers from attendees.
Data Collection
The greatest obstacle in determining how children with cognitive disabilities access justice is that in many areas related to access to justice, Ireland does not collect data. The Central Statistics Office keeps no data on the number of victims of crime who are under the age of 18, much less data disaggregated on disability. It is impossible to determine the existence and scope of a problem where no basic data is collected. Furthermore, decisions relating to the care, custody and guardianship of children are rarely recorded or published making it difficult to understand how children are informed of and involved in such proceedings.
Voice of the Child
One major barrier related to the voice of the child in Ireland is that children require a next friend to bring a case to the District Court. Aside from this law, there are few explicit prohibitions on children taking part in legal proceedings and many laws potentially could allow for the voice of children with cognitive disabilities to be heard. However, our experience, as documented in this report, is that existing laws are not interpreted or used consistently to accommodate the voice of the child in the justice system in Ireland. Interviews with experts consistently showed that cultural and attitudinal barriers often operate to exclude children with cognitive disabilities in non-criminal proceedings. We hope that with the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Children’s Rights Amendment that the judiciary will now focus on how to effectively enable the voice of the child to be heard in all proceedings involving decisions which will have a direct impact on the child’s life.
Garda Specialist Interviews
One positive finding in our research was discovery of the Garda Specialist Interviewers who are trained over a two year period on interviewing child victims and victims with intellectual disabilities. The training includes extensive role-playing, as well as placement with a community organization that works with people with intellectual disabilities.
Click here if you would like to access the full report and further information about the project.