Paul Nicholas Gogarty: Lift In-Camera Rule, Protect Children

Good morning, Minister. As you know, or may have inklings of, the family law system is harming our children. I believe if we don't take serious action, what is going on today will be perceived in the years to come as state-sanctioned child abuse. There's something seriously wrong with the courts, with TUSLA, with experts, and above all with the in-camera rule. I've so many stories I could tell you today, Minister, if I had the time. Many of them are in this recently published book, Justice for Birth Mothers, the fight against forced separation in modern Ireland. Many other people have also contacted me directly with their experiences of groupthink and lazy decisions by members of the judiciary, revolving door barristers with varying levels of interest, the absolute reliance on court-appointed so-called experts. These stories make numerous allegations, but without scrutiny and transparency, they remain hearsay. Let's start with TUSLA. We're all aware of the recently reported failures to protect children in their care, but in relation to the family law courts where parental disputes arise, there's an equal failure by TUSLA to provide the necessary supports and protections. The Justice for Birth Mothers book are referred to in reference as TUSLA 357 times. There are good, kind, conscientious people in the agency for sure, but it paints a picture of a collective and structural influence that is often malign. This story from Clara illustrates. Clara fled to Ireland after testifying against a dangerous criminal. Gardaí wrongfully arrested her on more than one occasion and removed her children three times, handing them to TUSLA. In court, she proved that some of the most serious claims made against her were simply false. She said, I proved in court that TUSLA lied and sworn affidavits. Judges tell them to get the house in order, but nothing changes. They block children from speaking to verify the truth. Some lies are disgusting and easily disproven, but they keep them hidden. I do not know how these social workers sleep at night. We need a radical overhaul of TUSLA. It's dysfunctional, not because there are about 50,000 referrals when you take out multiple referrals for children, but because it's not organized properly and not resourced adequately. I hope the promised review will overhaul, but like good as I fear, it'll be too little too late. And then of course, there are the court-appointed experts. Family law cases, to be clear, are by their nature adversarial. Parents will lie. Some parents will weaponize their children. Parents will make true claims, serious claims, false claims. The reality is that despite policy efforts to encourage mediation, family court cases have increased in number. This means the system can be often overloaded with long delays, which has meant that expert reports are used more often, which can actually escalate conflict rather than resolve it. I refer to the 2024 review of the role of expert reports in the family law process from your department. It mentions how experts are commonly sourced through word-of-mouth, not through a formal panel. That verification of qualifications is informal, inconsistent, and varies by judge. And get this, Minister, challenges to expert recommendations were shown to occur in only 10% to 20% of cases according to the judiciary interviews. That means eight or nine out of ten times a so-called expert makes recommendations, and they're not challenged in court. The review notes that every judge interviewed described expert reports as quote-unquote, extremely useful and central to the decision-making in private family law disputes. This makes these experts hugely powerful. Experts accused of making allegedly skewed decisions for money at the end of the day, and the judges must take the reports at face value. I think personal testimony is very powerful, so I'm going to take time to read a collection of stories about experiences. I got a message from a father who describes how his life changed in 2018 when his partner suddenly left with the two young daughters and accused him of emotional abuse. Despite no evidence, he spent months without contact and endured repeated allegations, guarded investigations, and blocked access. Each time he was cleared, new claims emerged, leading to long gaps in his children. When access resumed, the girls showed fear and distress, shaped by their mother. After years in court, he eventually secured shared custody, but his relationship with his youngest remained strained. He highlights the severe harm caused by this, what he describes as deliberate alienation, and calls for better awareness amongst professionals. Another man sharing his story moved to Ireland and remained an involved father, but after his arrival, his contact with his son was steadily reduced. A single, very positive visit from his perspective later became the basis for removing all access, but no specialist evaluation. Years of proceedings ultimately left him with no meaningful relationship with his child, dependent entirely on the child initiating contact, a very young child, something unlikely without external support. So, to be clear, men do suffer in this system, and it's important to note that, but as the other stories will show, the balance is massively, massively skewed against women. Some more passages from the Burt Mothers book. Amy's troubles began when she reported to Gardaí that her children would be sexually abused by their father. A court expert was appointed, who wrote a report recommending the children be handed to the father. He accused Amy of parental alienation, and recommended she have no access to the children at all. She said, I went into it very naively, thinking the court would hear what I had to say, and my children had to say. The opposite happened. The court expert told me he was a psychotherapist. He gave himself a number of different professional titles. He ignored the sexual abuse and domestic violence. He recommended the custody be removed from me and given to the father, the man my children named as their abuser. Supervised access was run by a for-profit business charging more than 200 euros a week. If I could not pay, visits were cancelled. He came to every court case and charged for each appearance. I've paid him around 12,000 euro. I do not know what he received from my ex-husband. Erica's troubles began many years ago, another story, when she reported child sexual abuse to Gardaí. Over time she succeeded in preventing the family court from giving custody of her children to the father, who was the perpetrator of that abuse. In her most recent court appearance, however, a judge accepted a court expert claim that she was guilty of parental alienation, and ruled that custody be given to the father. Erica appealed but could not secure free legal aid in time. She was forced to borrow 20,000 euros from family, friends and a local credit union to hire a private solicitor. And she said, I eventually did get a barrister and she just turned up that morning and my solicitor would fill her in on details. It was so obvious she never spoke to the barrister before that. When it became really serious, she absolutely let me down. It was like having no representation. And here's yet another story from someone who contacted me directly. I was labelled as bitter because I didn't have the money. The expert told me he wrote what my ex told him. He wrote in a report that my ex said I had issues with alcohol, which I don't, but when I asked had he any proof, he said no. I gave him proof in the form of a recording of my ex saying I didn't have a problem. But he refused to listen. I asked him was he accusing me of parental alienation. He said, where did I say that? And then went and wrote it specifically in his report. Lied on the standing court, stood at my ex's legal team, despite supposedly being independent, had multiple meetings with my ex and phone calls, but I wasn't afforded the same. He dismissed my child for bringing up inappropriate behaviour, said she got it wrong. The only other person he discussed the case with, believe it or not, was the woman my ex had an affair with who had walked out in her own family. He dismissed one child's learning issues, said they were a performance I made her put on, despite a report from an OT. He made kids stand under a tree and told them bond with your father or be brought back. This is despite being told by the children my ex had told them specifically he was getting bailiffs to drag me out of the house and frightening them. He was completely dismissive of domestic abuse. Even when this expert presented my proof that my ex was not being alienated and he was lying about access, he still spun a total lie that I was alienating him. And then listen to Sophie's story. Sophie reported that her teenage daughter had been sexually abused by her father. The case went to family court where a court expert accused her of parental alienation. Custody of the children was given to the father. She hasn't seen her children since early 2022. She said, I despise all of them. I had to pick an organisation that's the worst. It's the family law courts. It's the people in them. They are liars. They have no honesty. The in-camera rule needs to be lifted. There's no justice. Your basic human rights have been violated and it's hidden by the in-camera rule. People commit perjury every day in the family law courts and nobody outside knows, she says. I've seen social workers commit perjury. I have proof of it. I even have an admission of perjury from one. So we see how these experts facilitate false accusations in the court system and that many parents have been denied access to their children as a result. We've seen stories of alienation in the general sense, but also cases, especially among women, who've been wrongly accused of parental alienation with one social worker in the system, a cult-like devotee of Gardner's discredited theory of parental alienation syndrome, who's consigned numerous children to prolonged stays with narcissistic and abusive parents under so-called immersion therapy. Some would say that man deserves a special place in hell, but he's not the only expert who has caused pain. Of course, again, it's all hearsay because there's no reporting due to the in-camera rule. It provides shelter for abusers. And yes, Minister, I'm aware that the 2024 report made recommendations and some things are coming online. So I do hope that this positive feature will help. But we still know that even if we do have this new panel of assessors, this new scrutiny going in, we still have to have transparency and scrutiny on the decisions being made then, because even the most qualified people make mistakes. We've seen this with judges. We see it everywhere. Which brings us back to the in-camera rule. Now, Deputy Minister, you referred to the report on the operation of the in-camera rule in family law proceedings by Drs. Parks, Burns and McOchran. This report was a comprehensive report and it did multiple interviews with many stakeholders. It found that the in-camera rule is inconsistently understood and applied in Ireland. The report emphasised that while privacy is essential, the rule creates, and I quote, a striking absence of public knowledge about what happens in family courts. This lack of transparency undermines public confidence. The report stated that the current operation of the in-camera rule is, and again I quote, an impingement on young people's lives, especially when it prevents appropriate information sharing with those supporting the child. Now, as I understand it, there are steps to address this specific area, but in general terms, very few of the recommendations of this long-delayed review have been implemented in full or even partially. We've no new primary legislation, no automatic access to redacted orders for certain professionals, such as foster care, schools and support services. This requires legislation to be implemented. There's also no statutory right for parties to request transcripts. So, Minister, this slow and piecemeal progress, and I have to give, I suppose, you credit for speeding it up a bit, this slow progress ironically now presents us with an opportunity, because despite all the evidence, and I find this incredulous, to be quite honest, one of the conclusions of the in-camera report was to suggest that family law proceedings should basically continue to be held in private. There is a kind of a halfway house suggested, but it's not the abolition of the in-camera rule. So I believe, and as would you, Minister, that if new evidence comes to light, conclusions must change. And my understanding is that the evidence from across the water is overwhelming. The English Welsh legal system, they recently had a sea change in how the family courts were reported on. They set up pilot studies that removed the in-camera rule that allowed accredited journalists and legal bloggers to report on family law proceedings, of course, subject to strict anonymity protections. This system has been found to work with ongoing protection of anonymity. And as a result, it has now been rolled out extensively, including a pilot in Northern Ireland. The open reporting provisions in this system, which is one of the closest ones to our legal system, means that there is a presumption that a transparency order protecting the anonymity of children and their families is granted, unless there is a legitimate reason not to. It's totally different. Assume you can report on stuff. Assume the names are going to be protected. Have trust in the journalists. I know you're talking about having a regulated, kind of accredited journalist system. But any journalist who meets the criteria should be able to report. If not, there are prosecutions. And I think you have to assume the right to report, first and foremost, in a democracy. The president of the family division in England, the retired judge Sir Andrew Macfarlane, said about the system over there now, and I quote, the establishment of the open reporting provisions in all family courts in England and Wales is a watershed moment for family justice. He also said, there have been no known breaches of anonymity of children, and the aims of the pilot to increase public understanding and awareness of the family court are being realised. My understanding is there's 23 court areas in Ireland at the district level, with those districts being subdivided into the eight circuit court regions. Surely, Minister, here in Ireland, we could pilot a scheme that could be initially rolled out in several of these areas. And I do hope that the reason the recommendations haven't been made is because of fear of backlash from the judiciary. We know that Dr Charlotte Proudman in the UK, for example, was trolled online, was called a bitch, got horrendous abuse from actual members of the judiciary who didn't like her involvement in the case. And it was a collective effort by a load of people in the UK, but she comes over here regularly and she's a keen advocate for the in-camera rule to be removed. She got dog's abuse, and I think it's highly unfair. I believe our judiciary are more civilised. I believe that people are in favour of transparency. So let's bring in that transparency, pilot it and fix any errors as they arise. Because the time for secrecy has ended. The time for meaningful action, Minister, is now. It's time to do the right thing, to shine a light in the system. And remember, we're trying to put the best interests of the children first. If you have stuff going on, and maybe even if 80% of the allegations are here saying they're false, that means it's 20% true. And if you shine a light on bad decisions, if you put scrutiny on something, it leads to improvements. We need to shine a light, Minister, so please do the right thing.