Court orders Child and Family Agency to comply with care order directions regarding social worker allocation and case reviews.

NEUTRAL CITATION:[2025] IEDC 3

AN CHÚIRT DÚICHE

THE DISTRICT COURT

DUBLIN METROPOLITAN DISTRICT COURT

IN THE MATTER OF THE CHILDCARE ACT 1991

SECTION 18 AND SECTION 47

Decision of Judge Conor Fottrell delivered on the 20 day of June 2025

Introduction:

1. In January 2024, the Court became aware of an issue relating to the failure of the Child and Family Agency (“the Agency”) to comply with court directions made in a care order.

2. In a particular case before the Court for review, the Court was told that the Agency had failed to re-enter the case when the child became unallocated to a social worker for a period of more than four weeks.

3. On making further enquires, the Court was subsequently informed by the Agency in April/May 2024 that approximately 250 children under care orders did not have an allocated social worker and the Agency had not complied with the Court’s directions to re-enter any of these cases back into court.

4. The Court then had to arrange to bring each one of these cases back before the Court for review over the last year, while also trying to establish how the Agency had allowed this failure to happen.

5. Arising out of the Court’s concern that there may be a more widespread issue, new directions were made on 3 July 2024, which included directing the Agency to conduct a full review of all children currently under care orders granted in this court to identify any further directions that had not been complied with.

6. The Agency took 11 months to complete the review and submitted a final report dated

9 June 2025.

7. At the Courts request the Chief Executive Officer (“the CEO”) of the Agency attended court on 12 June to give evidence in relation to the matter.

8. This decision is from the Court’s enquiry and review over the last 18 months into the Agencies persistent non-compliance with court directions included in care orders granted in these courts over the last 15 years.

9. The decision provides an update on developments since the earlier court decision on the issue was published on 11 March 2025.

10. The Courts conclusions outlined in that earlier decision remain and have not changed.

The Child and Family Agency Review – June 2025:

11. The Court was told that, as of the date of completion of the report, the number of children currently under care orders granted in this court over the last 15 years was 1,052.

12. The review identified breaches relating to 471 children currently under care orders, with a total of 859 court directions not complied with by the Agency relating to these children and the cases not re-entered back to court.

13. The directions identified in the court-ordered review are as follows:

- 395 children under care orders did not have an allocated social worker for more than four weeks.

- 245 children did not have a child-in-care review take place within the statutory timeframe.

- 92 children did not have their foster placement long-term matched as per the timeframe directed by the Court.

- 79 children were placed with foster carers who did not have an allocated fostering link worker to the foster care placement for a period of more than four weeks.

- 12 children did not have a statutory visit from a social worker.

- 10 children did not receive a specific assessment or service provided as directed by the Court.

- 7 children did not have their cases re-entered before the Court for review on the date directed by the Court in the care order.

- 6 children did not have an allocated aftercare worker, and their cases were not reentered before the Court for an aftercare review.

- 3 children did not have the court-directed access schedule or access support in place.

- 3 children had a change of placement without having the case re-entered before the Court to update the Court on the change of placement.

- 3 breaches were in relation to providing parents with an update or parental support.

- 4 breaches are identified as “other”.

- 87 cases have yet to be re-entered back into the Court.

14. In the report, the Agency outlined that they are implementing enhancements to their case management system to support the management of court orders and directions.

15. The digital transformation to enable management of court directions will be implemented on a phased basis, with the first part of the system put in place in September 2025.

16. In addition, a training programme is to be devised and rolled out to social work teams to share learning from the court-directed review. The Chief Executive Officer:

17. At the request of the Court, the CEO, Ms Kate Duggan, attended on 12 June to give evidence following completion of the Court-ordered review.

18. In her evidence, she outlined that she first became aware of an issue in relation to the re-entering of cases back to court in December 2022, when a Regional Chief Officer advised that there was an issue of non-compliance with care orders.

19. At this time, she was the Director of Services and Integration, and her understanding was that the issue related to around forty children who did not have an allocated social worker.

20. The CEO confirmed she did not escalate the matter at the time to the then CEO or the Executive Management Team (“EMT”) as she deemed this an operational matter but, on reflection, she did accept that this specific detail should have been shared with EMT and the Board.

21. While the issue of the non-allocation of social workers to children in care was recorded on the Agency’s internal risk register system, there was no record made of the non-compliance with court orders on this system.

22. Ms Duggan was appointed interim CEO in March 2023, and she was aware that a meeting took place in January 2023 of the Regional Chief Officers (“RCO’s”) with legal representatives in attendance to discuss the issue of non-compliance and devise a plan to reenter the cases back into court.

23. The CEO indicated that she had assumed the issue was being dealt with around this time and that the cases would be re-entered back before the Court.

24. The CEO told the Court she was not aware of the full scale of the issue until the Court requested a written response from her in March 2024.

25. Given that she was initially made aware of the issue in December 2022, the Court is unclear as to why there appears to have been no follow up with or by the CEO after the RCO’s meeting in January 2023 and why it appears the CEO was not kept fully updated on the scale of the issue throughout 2023 and into 2024.

26. The CEO confirmed that no active decision was made by anyone in the Agency not to re-enter the cases into court but equally accepted that the Agency did not re-enter any of the cases despite being aware of the non-compliance with court directions.

27. The CEO accepted that the Agency’s systems were not fit for purpose in terms of the recording, managing and monitoring of court orders, but she did not accept full responsibility in her role as CEO for the Agency’s widespread failure to comply with court orders, indicating that she felt it was an agency-wide responsibility.

28. The CEO has commissioned an external review into the circumstances which have led to this position to ensure it does not happen again.

29. The CEO repeated her apology to the Court, to the children affected and to the parents for the failure by the Agency to comply with the care orders.

30. The CEO has agreed with the Court’s suggestion that she would write a letter to each of the children affected, apologising for the Agency’s failure.

Unprecedented Situation:

31. The enquiry and review began in January 2024, with several hearings taking place over the last 18 months with senior management from local, regional, and national level attending court.

32. In addition, reports, correspondence, and updates from the Agency were received in response to specific queries raised by the Court.

33. Initially, the Court’s understanding was that the failure to comply with care orders related to the non-allocation of a social worker and involved around 250 children.

34. All those cases were re-entered by the Court over the last year, with parents notified where possible and a Guardian ad Litem re-appointed.

35. Each case will be kept under court review for as long as necessary, to ensure the Agency complies with its own standards and that each child’s welfare needs are being fully met while under a care order.

36. However, the subsequent court-directed review completed in June 2025 has now confirmed that the issue is far wider than just the allocation of a social worker and includes numerous other court directions relating to children under care orders which have also not been complied with.

37. The review has identified that 395 children under care orders did not have an allocated social worker, which is much higher than the Court was initially informed of last year.

38. The Court has now become aware that 245 children did not have a child-in-care review take place within the statutory timeframe and 12 children did not have a statutory visit from a social worker.

39. 92 children did not have their foster placement long-term matched within the timeframe directed by the Court and 79 children were in a foster placement that did not have an allocated fostering link worker for more than 4 weeks.

40. The review further identifies that 7 children did not receive a specific assessment or service as directed in the care order by the Court, and 6 children were not allocated an aftercare worker, and their case was not re-entered for an aftercare review before the Court prior to the child turning 18 years.

41. Many of the 471 children identified in this review have had multiple directions included in their care order not complied with by the Agency.

42. The Agency’s failure to re-enter each one of these cases as directed means the Court, the child’s parents and their Guardian ad Litem were not aware of any of this until the Court enquiry began last year and the further updated information was provided last week.

43. This is an alarming and unprecedented situation where the Agency with statutory responsibility for child protection has failed to comply with care orders on such a widespread level.

Conclusion:

44. Over the last 15 years, in each one of these cases, the Agency brought an application before the Court under the Childcare Act 1991 for a care order seeking to place each child into care until their 18th birthday.

45. When granting the care orders, directions were included by the Judge in each order to safeguard the child’s care, directing the Agency to bring a case back into court should there be any significant change in a child’s circumstances or care planning.

46. The Agency is fully aware when the directions are included in a care order and of their obligations to re-enter a case back into court.

47. The enquiry has established that senior management in the Agency at local, regional, and national level, including the current CEO, were aware back in December 2022 that there was an issue in relation to a delay in re-entering cases back into court.

48. However, it was only in 2024, arising from the Court’s own enquiries, that this information became known and has now identified that 859 directions included in care orders relating to 471 children were not complied with and the cases never re-entered by the Agency before the Court.

49. The District Court is a court of local and limited jurisdiction and the integrity of the Court process, and the rule of law must be upheld.

50. Behind each one of the 859 directions is a child in care and the Court has tried to keep the focus over the last 18 months centred on the welfare of the children affected by the Agency’s failure to comply with court orders.

51. Each case will remain under review before the Court over the coming months to ensure each child’s needs are being met, with parents notified where possible and a Guardian ad Litem re-appointed.

52. The Agency has failed in its statutory duty to each one of the 471 children involved and the scale and widespread failure to comply with care orders relating to vulnerable children in care is shocking and appalling.

53. The Agency’s systems in place across all levels to manage, record, monitor and oversee care orders and court directions were not fit for purpose.

54. The Court’s enquiry is now at an end and, regrettably, the trust in the Agency is broken and their reputation before the Court is damaged.

55. Finally, the Court has updated the letter written to each of the children published on 11 March 2025 so that it can now be included on the social work files of all 395 children who did not have an allocated social worker. (appendix 1).

Conor Fottrell. Judge of the District Court.

20 June 2025.

APPENDIX 1

Dublin Metropolitan District,

Child Care Courts,

Chancery Street

Dublin 7.

20 June 2025

Introduction

I am a Judge of the District Court assigned to the Child Care Courts in Dublin, dealing with cases relating to the safety, care and welfare of children. I am providing the letter below for the

395 children under Care Orders granted by the Court who did not have an allocated social worker and where the Child and Family Agency (“the Agency”) failed to inform the Court about this, as directed. The Court has been dealing with these cases over the last 18 months. Many of the cases will remain before the Court under review and any case that is still unallocated to a social worker will continue under review before the Court for as long as necessary. The Court will also continue in its efforts to make sure that the Agency never allows this to happen again. The failure to comply with court orders will not be tolerated. I believe it is important that the Court would communicate directly with the children at the centre of these proceedings. Each child is entitled to be given an accurate and informed account of what happened in their case on this issue. I hope and wish that, should any child want access later in life to their own file, the letter will provide them with a record of what happened and help them understand the efforts the Court made to hold the Agency to account. The Court wants a copy of this letter to be put on the social work file for each child without redaction. A copy of the letter will also be provided to each child’s Guardian ad Litem.

To The Children Concerned

My name is Conor Fottrell, and I am Judge of the District Court working in the Child Care Courts in Dublin. I deal with cases everyday relating to the safety and welfare of children. I have to make decisions in relation to children, who are known to or in the care of the Agency. A Care Order places a child into the care of the Agency up to their 18th birthday. When the Court granted a Care Order in respect of you, the Judge at the time made sure that you would have an allocated social worker available to you. To ensure that you would always have an identified social worker available while you were in the care of the Agency, the Judge specially included it in the Care Order.

When the Judge wrote this into the Care Order, it is called a direction. A direction means that the Judge made it a legal requirement which the Agency must follow. This was the Court’s way of making sure that you would have all you need, even when the Court was not hearing about you on a regular basis. The Agency was directed to let the Court know if a child became unallocated to a social worker after a set period, such as 4 weeks. The Court was very shocked and disappointed when it became aware that the Agency did not follow the Court’s direction to inform the Court that children on Care Orders did not have social workers.

I am writing to you as the Court was told that you were one of the children that did not have an allocated social worker. The Court found out that you, and around 395 children across social work departments in Dublin, did not have allocated social workers for more than 4 weeks. Judges for the last 15 years have put this as a direction into the Care Order. When I became aware of this situation in February 2024, I made efforts to get an explanation from the Agency as to how this happened, and to ensure it does not happen again. I asked each Dublin social work department to identify each child under a Care Order with no social worker.

I asked them to provide the Court with updates on how each child was doing to ensure that they were well, and they had all the care they needed. The allocation of a social worker to each child in care is so important to provide all the supports you need, even when things are going well for you. Each child in care should be able to form a relationship with their social worker, to contact and connect with them whenever they need to do so. This is why the Agency has its own National Standards for Foster Care, which say that each child in care should have an allocated social worker.

In each case, a Guardian ad Litem was appointed, and parents notified where possible. Guardians ad Litem are independent professionals appointed by the Court to be the voice of the child and give their independent professional opinion on a child’s welfare and update the Court. I felt it was important that each child had an opportunity to speak to someone from outside the Agency about their current situation. The Court asked senior managers from the Agency including the Chief Executive Officer to come into court to answer questions about each child not having a social worker and court orders not being complied with.

The Agency acknowledged and accepted that it should have told the Court about all of this, and it apologised to the Court and to the children. The Court told the Agency to write to each foster carer to make sure that they knew that the child in their care did not have a social worker. The Agency did this. I also asked that each child’s care plan was updated to make sure that there is a clear written record for each child of when their Care Order was not complied with and for how long they were without a social worker. The Agency did not update the care plans as I hoped.

Instead, it attached a record of social workers that were appointed to each child. This is not what I wanted for each child, but the Agency believe this is sufficient. My plan is for your case to remain before the Court until the Agency complies with the Care Order in place for you. We are all working hard to ensure that you feel heard, and your needs are being met in the care of the Agency. I hope you find this letter helpful, and you understand the reasons why the Court felt it was important to write to you. Finally, I wish you all the best now and in the future.

With very best wishes,

Judge Conor Fottrell.

20 June 2025.