HSE ‘sought care order within days of birth’

A case in which the Child and Family Agency is seeking to keep a baby boy from the care of his parents has heard the HSE sought “the nuclear option” of a care order within days of the child’s premature birth.

The case, which is being heard at Cork District Court before Judge Tim Lucey, also heard claims that during the woman’s “difficult” pregnancy, social workers did not approach the mother or the father to moot the idea that the HSE would be seeking to take the child into care.

The Child and Family Support Agency has taken on the role of the HSE in such cases, and the court again heard claims the couple are effectively homeless.

The baby boy, born 10 weeks’ premature on Oct 3 weighing just 2lb, is already the subject of an interim care order and the agency is seeking a six month care order it said would allow them to monitor the situation.

Mairead Carey, barrister for the parents, yesterday cross-examined the main social worker in the case and claimed that on Oct 7 in a conversation with the boy’s father, “you went in to congratulate him on the birth of his son and in the next breath told him you would be seeking a care order”.

Ms Carey also said the couple are staying in a hostel near the hospital where the baby is being cared for only while the boy was there, and did not view it as a home. Nor, she argued, was the mother homeless during the pregnancy.

She said since the birth, the social worker had only spent approximately five hours with the parents. “A lot of assumptions have been made about her character in these five hours and you really do not know her at all,” Ms Carey said, to which the social worker disagreed.

Ms Carey also queried the accuracy of social work and other reports on the mother.

The social worker said she had not sought to raise the issue of the child being taken into care before the birth because it was a “high-risk pregnancy” with a chance of premature labour and because at one point the couple had said they were going to move to Dublin to have the baby.

The couple, who have been together more than 18 months, want to move to Dublin with the baby to live with the father’s parents.

Ms Carey said on three occasions the parents had offered to co-operate under a supervision order, but the HSE had turned this down.

The hearing, which could last for four days, continues today.