Alan Kelly: End Blanket Secrecy in Family Courts Now
Alan Kelly challenged the Minister in 2026 to end blanket secrecy in family courts and to overhaul the system of court-appointed experts. He cited the 2025 review and RTÉ Investigates reporting as evidence that parents and children are confused, traumatised and urgently need clearer rules.
Alan Kelly praised Deputy Gogarty and RTÉ Investigates before setting out his central demand: the in-camera rule governing family courts must be reformed to allow controlled transparency with strong safeguards. He argued current secrecy has caused emotional harm to families and obstructs clear public understanding.
Kelly warned that keeping blanket in-camera proceedings while implementing only some recommendations creates a confusing outcome for parents and guardians. He said the 2025 review showed people feel confused, isolated and silenced about what they can and cannot discuss regarding family court issues.
A central focus of the address was a call for a complete overhaul of court-appointed experts: minimum standards, clearer qualification requirements, and stronger regulation. Kelly described the experts industry as too laissez-faire and warned judges often treat expert opinions as de facto guidance without consistent safeguards.
Kelly asked the Minister to allow journalistic attendance with full anonymity for families, to give judges discretion over restrained reporting, to regulate experts, and to provide training for Garda Síochána. He urged a political consensus and prompt action from the Minister to deliver the reforms people and children need.
Summary of the intervention
Alan Kelly praised Deputy Gogarty and RTÉ Investigates before setting out his central demand: the in-camera rule governing family courts must be reformed to allow controlled transparency with strong safeguards. He argued current secrecy has caused emotional harm to families and obstructs clear public understanding.
Concerns about current rules and impacts
Kelly warned that keeping blanket in-camera proceedings while implementing only some recommendations creates a confusing outcome for parents and guardians. He said the 2025 review showed people feel confused, isolated and silenced about what they can and cannot discuss regarding family court issues.
Court-appointed experts under scrutiny
A central focus of the address was a call for a complete overhaul of court-appointed experts: minimum standards, clearer qualification requirements, and stronger regulation. Kelly described the experts industry as too laissez-faire and warned judges often treat expert opinions as de facto guidance without consistent safeguards.
Proposed measures and next steps
Kelly asked the Minister to allow journalistic attendance with full anonymity for families, to give judges discretion over restrained reporting, to regulate experts, and to provide training for Garda Síochána. He urged a political consensus and prompt action from the Minister to deliver the reforms people and children need.
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Transcript
Firstly, I want to compliment Deputy Gogarty and his colleagues for bringing this forward. This is an extremely important topic where, to a degree, Minister, we probably need to get it to a political consensus. I believe that you can travel this journey with us and you're probably committed to a certain amount of reform in this area because I've read what you spoke about last year and indeed a number of years ago in relation to this. So I'd hope that your goodwill towards it is very real. I accept that it is a tricky area. I accept that it will take some time but I do believe and hope that you will be the Minister to deal with this. Like others, I do also want to compliment RT Investigates in relation to their programme as well because it certainly brought about a level of knowledge to people and did it in a very real way. The review that was reported in 2025, in a way, I suppose, it demonstrated what parents and guardians feel as regards to being confused, isolated, silenced, completely confused as regards to what they can and cannot discuss. So it's clearly obvious that this has to be dealt with, where there is clear information, clear knowledge, clear guidelines in relation to how they deal with family court issues. But few of the recommendations have been implemented. I do believe you're committed to it but few have been implemented. However, the report ultimately keeps the in-camera rule which creates a very confusing outcome. While you can agree with many of the recommendations, it still comes down in the favour of that. In reality, Minister, in the real world, this cannot continue. The world has changed from where we are as regards to the legislation that was brought in in relation to this, whereby information now is coming out in a different way. We need to ensure that there is controlled transparency with strong and amenable safeguards rather than blanket secrecy. Because the impact on families, the impact on children has been a huge emotional harm, traumatised and indeed re-traumatised. We as a legislature in 2026 finally need to deal with this. Minister, one of the most key points, and I've been saying this for some time, is we need to deal with the whole issue of court-appointed experts. This is without a shadow of a doubt an area that needs complete overhaul as regards minimum standards, minimum requirements, the whole issue of how qualified, the fact that many of these experts, in many cases the judges just take their opinions as de facto and guiding. These people are being paid. It's an industry. The standards aren't there. It's too defining a role to leave so laissez-faire. It's unacceptable. And really, Minister, I urge you to deal with this issue, because it's life-changing for the families and the children involved, and it's completely inconsistent. There's also the consistency of issues in relation to TUSA, in relation to how they implement recommendations. So ultimately, Minister, we need to change the in-camera rule, we need to permit attendance of journalism, we need full-on anonymity as regards family, we need judges to have discretion as regards restrained reporting. We need complete regulation of experts. And we also need training for Garda Síochána as well. Thank you.