Grandmother refused foster rights

A GRANDMOTHER is taking her local health board to court over its refusal to grant her foster care rights to her two grandchildren.

The grandmother has been looking after her two grandchildren for almost four years because of her daughter's inability to care for them due to a chronic heroin problem.

Carol is one of a growing number of grandparents forced to become parents again because of their own children's drug addiction, but are receiving little or no help from the State.

Grandparents and support workers yesterday came together in Dublin to highlight their plight and campaign for an end to the bureaucratic nightmare they face when looking for help.

Lawyers for Carol are considering her case and intend to apply for judicial review proceedings challenging the refusal to accord her entitlement as a foster carer.

Foster carers receive a weekly allowance of €289.50 per child under 12 years and €316 for those over 12.

According to health board regulations children first have to be abandoned and put into care before they can be fostered.

"But if I abandoned my two grandchildren there'd be no guarantee I'd get them back because I had abandoned them," said Carol, who gave no surname.

Carol said because of her living arrangements, a health board assessment could rule her home as unsuitable for foster care.

"I have a two-bedroom house. My sons, aged 18 and 23, are sleeping in the sitting room, while the grandchildren, aged five and six, sleep in their room."

The 47-year-old from Ballyfermot, Dublin, said if she and her husband were foster carers they would be entitled to an extension in order to provide the children with a separate bedroom and bathroom.

Carol has been given an Orphan's Allowance, but this gives her only €107 per child per week. Speaking at a conference organised by Citywide Family Support Network, Carol said: "This works out at €1.57 an hour for looking after children who are victims of the Government's failure to sort out the drugs problem."

With her husband incapacitated and living on disability allowance, money is a problem. Her local health board refused to give her the back to school allowance (€348 per child), and she gets no help towards after-school care, which costs €30 per week, along with €20 bus service.

"The State is forcing me to put my grandchildren into their care because of financial difficulties."

The new Social Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan told the Dáil recently he intended to carry out a review of these payments.

Citywide Family Support Network can be contacted on 01-8365090.

Teresa's story

TERESA has been looking after her grandson since his birth almost 10 years ago.

A year after Gerard was born, his own mother, Teresa's daughter, developed a drug problem.

"This effectively left Gerard abandoned as his father was regularly in custody and my daughter was incapable of looking after him due to her chronic drug addiction," said Teresa.

Between 1995 and 2001, Teresa, aged 52, from Ballyfermot, Dublin, received no financial assistance from the health board.

She said Gerard's father wasn't interested in being an active parent and she had to push him to stay in contact.

She said there were periods when Gerard's father would not meet with him for six months or more.

"When Gerard's father does show an interest in him, it may be extended to an overnight stay or a trip to McDonald's."

After her daughter died in 2003, aged just 25, Teresa received a children's allowance payment. She applied for an Orphan's Allowance (€97 per week), but her claim was rejected.

She said the health board told her Gerard's father had not abandoned his son.

"So, effectively, my husband and myself are acting as parents to Gerard. I don't have a difficulty with this.

"What I do have the difficulty with is the cost of trying to keep my grandson."

Padraig's story

PADRAIG brought his grandson back from England more than a year ago on foot of a court order.

The boy's mother had been deemed incapable of looking after her son because of her drug addiction.

"When I brought my son back, Irish social services could not even provide me with a social worker for four supervised visits a year for his mother to visit him.

"This resulted in this six-year-old boy having only seen his mother once over the last year, and we had to go to the UK for that, where she's in a rehab programme.

"When we did go over on August 29 last he cried himself to sleep that evening because he couldn't understand why she wasn't coming home with him."

Padraig, aged 44 and a single grandparent living in north Clondalkin, Dublin, succeeded in getting the Orphan's Allowance, but feels this stigmatises children.

"Orphan's Allowance labels our children unfairly and stops people claiming it because it renders the kids dead on paper."

He said the system was openly hostile towards enabling grandparents becoming a foster parent and receiving the more substantial Foster's Allowance of €289.50 per child under 12 and €316 per child over 12.

"We are intimidated into not going the fostering route for our grandchildren because the threat of being taken away, even temporarily while the process is being worked out, is just too frightening to contemplate.

"All these children already had some trauma thrown at them in their short life."

Padraig said his grandson still wakes up every night calling for him.

"At best it's going to be a rocky road as these kids get older.

"We are grand-parents, but every one has a breaking point."