*It is the fourth child of this couple to be taken into State care.
TUSLA, the Child and Family Agency (CFA) is to seek a full care order until the age of 18 for a new born baby boy who was effectively abandoned at the maternity hospital by his mother four days after his birth.
At the Family Law Court, solicitor for TUSLA, Kevin Sherry said that the CFA is to bring a care order application under Section 18 of the Child Care Act in relation to the baby boy for the next court date in March.
Mr Sherry said that the baby boy is “thriving” in his foster placement where he is living with a sister who is also in CFA care at the same foster home.
The baby boy is the couple’s fourth child to enter State care and the brother and sister’s two siblings live in another county.
Mr Sherry told Judge Alec Gabbett that TUSLA’s efforts at getting the new baby’s parents to engage with the court process have so far failed.
Judge Gabbett commented: “There have been various excursions (by TUSLA staff) and you can only bring a horse to water so many times.”
The baby is now around 13 weeks old and after the mother – described as ‘very vulnerable’ in court – discharged herself from the maternity unit in December, TUSLA moved in and secured an Interim Care Order (ICO) for the then four day old baby boy.
Judge Gabbett said that he came across the parents in two other court areas on care order issues for their children “and they have never engaged”.
Judge Gabbett said, “They have never engaged. Never. What are we going to do? We have to keep going. The child will have to go into care”.
Mr Sherry said, “Yes judge”.
He said that CFA has tried to engage with the parents in order for them to undergo assessments.
However, after the parents’ failure to engage, Mr Sherry said, “That is not going to happen now. We have tried”.
On hearing that the baby is thriving in foster care, Judge Gabbett said, “We can’t have trauma in this case because there was no time to traumatise the baby”.
Judge Gabbett commented that people who are in active addiction and living lives of chaos and in a haze would “at least tell you that they are not interested” in the court process unlike the case before the court.
Judge Gabbett ordered that the CFA serve notice on the parents of the Section 18 full care order proceedings to take place next month.
When the case was before Judge Alec Gabbett in January he commented, “The mother discharged herself from the maternity hospital and effectively abandoned the baby knowing exactly what was going to happen as it happened three times before”.
In court last month, a TUSLA care worker said that the father did wish to have an access visit with his baby boy and the care worker was able to send the father a photo of his baby and a supervised access visit was to be arranged.
The care worker stated that the mother didn’t understand why her children are in care. The care worker stated that a parental capacity assessment carried out in 2016 found that the mother’s capacity to parent is very poor and raised concerns over cognitive issues.
The social care worker stated that she had concerns over mother’s capacity to understand the process. She said, “Mother won’t take any help that is offered to her”.
