I move:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide for the suspension of the powers, responsibilities and entitlements of guardianship in certain circumstances and for that purpose to amend the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964 and to provide for related matters.
The Social Democrats wish to introduce this Bill for the simple reason that there exists what the Minister for Justice has described as an anomaly in law whereby a parent who has been convicted of unlawfully killing the other parent of a child retains his or her guardianship of that child. Retention of guardianship in this context means that the convicted person has to be informed of the child's situation, must be consulted in major decisions to be taken for the child and can influence their placement. This Bill remedies that anomaly by giving the courts the power to suspend the guardianship. The Bill has been referred to in the press as Valerie's Law, after the late Valerie French, a mother of three young children who was murdered by her husband in 2019. Killing a mother is child abuse, yet their abuser retains powers over them. This has caused major difficulties for those trying to care for children in this situation and adds to the burden on the victim's family.
Research shows that the best outcomes for children in this terrible situation are to be placed with the victim's family. The perpetrator typically uses his or her powers to frustrate that. In Ireland, research by the Child Care Law Reporting Project shows that this affects on average seven children in the country every year. That may not be a large number, but the effect on the victim's family is immense. The prospect of having guardianship suspended will also have a potential deterrent effect and add to the consequences of the crimes of manslaughter or murder.
We know the names of Valerie French, Nadine Lott, Jasmine McMonagle and too many others. Many of these women had children, whose names are rightfully not publicly known. We owe it to these women to remove the killers from their children's lives. Although the examples given are women, the same applies for men like the late Jason Corbett. By putting this Bill into law, the winners are abused children and the losers are convicted killers.
This is a legislative change without associated monetary cost. The OPLA has assured us that the suspension of guardianship is constitutionally possible. By giving discretion to the courts, the Bill allows for the edge cases where suspension of a guardianship would not be in the child's best interests. An example is where a mother acts in self-defence but still receives a conviction of manslaughter. It is also worth noting that the suspension of guardianship simply removes powers and rights from the perpetrator. It is still open to the child or their carers to choose to reach out to the perpetrator at any time.
This Bill relies on a criminal verdict being obtained, and that takes time - in the order of years. It is tempting to try to construct a mechanism that would suspend guardianship in advance of a verdict, but that is purposely rejected as it could introduce fatal flaws and complexity. The DPP pressing a charge of manslaughter or murder can be taken into account at a policy level when dealing with childcare matters prior to a conviction. A similar law called Jade's Law was enacted in England and Wales in 2024.
Clodagh Hawe was murdered in 2016. Her sister and mother met the then Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, in 2019, and the Government then started working on A Study on Familicide & Domestic and Family Violence Death Reviews. That substantial and valuable report came out four years later, in 2023, and contained the following recommendation among almost 200 others:
It is therefore recommended that the Child and Family Relationships Act 2015, or other relevant legislation, must be amended to ensure that a parent convicted of the murder or manslaughter of the other parent does not retain guardianship of the surviving child or children.
In 2024, the victims family consultation meeting at the Department of Justice on A Study on Familicide & Domestic and Family Violence Death Reviews received the Government guardianship rights paper. The conclusion to the Government guardianship rights paper simply restates the 2023 recommendation. The draft programme for Government published in January includes the following text on page 121:
Examine proposals to remove guardianship rights from those convicted of killing their partners or a parent of their child as part of the ongoing work to implement appropriate recommendations from the Study on Familicide and Domestic and Family Violence Death Reviews.
I know that the Government is seeking an amendment to the Guardianship of Infants Act to implement Valerie's Law, which will remove guardianship rights from one parent who kills another. However, we need to simply move to enacting legislation and avoid damaging public confidence in the responsiveness of the legislative process. My colleague, Deputy Holly Cairns, has been working on this Bill since July 2024. Since then, we have received OPLA advice in September and worked through several drafts, taking inputs from experts in the area and from victim families, most importantly. We believe this Bill is ready and do not see the need for further delay. By legislative standards, it is not complex and it leaves room for court discretion. It is constitutional and long overdue. The Department's time would be better spent addressing the many other recommendations in the 2023 report and avoiding reinvention. We would welcome the Government's support to use this Bill to correct this anomaly in the law.
