Child welfare legal fees in Cork and Kerry dwarf other regions

LEGAL fees incurred taking children into care in child protection and welfare cases in the Cork/Kerry region are far higher than any other area in the country.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show in 2007 and 2008 in the Cork and Kerry region, legal costs came to more than €6 million.

For the same period, the combined total for Limerick, Clare, Roscommon, Mayo, Donegal, Galway, Sligo and Leitrim came to just over €3m.

According to the HSE the reason for the high costs in Cork and Kerry is because there is a much busier caseload.

However, this explanation does not appear to hold up as figures show between 2007 and 2009, the HSE spent €2.4m on childcare cases in Dublin and surrounding areas. This is an additional year’s work for almost €4m less than in Cork/Kerry over a two-year period.

Nor does it add up when the number of children taken into care in 2007 and 2008 in each region is taken into account.

The total number of cases in the South was 697 (including Waterford, Wexford, Carlow/Kilkenny) while the total in the West fell just below that at 630.

Social workers in the Cork region have claimed they are needlessly called back to childcare proceedings again and again. They have claimed valuable time is wasted waiting around for sometimes unnecessary court proceedings.

UCC child law specialist Ursula Kilkelly said judges work in different ways and have their own approaches to cases. She said they have a monitoring function under the Child Care Act so this could be part of the reason why cases are called back.

According to the HSE, approximately 56% of its operational spend is in the area of child care. The HSE also pays the legal fees of any third parties involved in court proceedings.

A spokesperson for the HSE said it is currently in the process of transforming the delivery of legal services.

It says a new model will result in “paying for the service and not the person by getting the right advice from the right person at the right time”.

As part of the preparation for the tender competition, HSE has undertaken a consultative process to assist in determining the most suitable legal services contracting model. The process involved a market sounding seminar with approximately 80 law firms participating from Irish and international law firms.

The purpose of this seminar was to allow HSE to formally engage with the legal services market and seek their views on the delivery of legal services to the HSE in advance of going to tender, according to a spokesperson.