Child murder victims will be 'forgotten children' under new interpretation 

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has committed to bringing a memo to Government next week, outlining how she proposes to deal with matters relating to the new Children's Act interpretation. File picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

A mother of two children murdered by their father speaks out

It scares me. With a sweep of a pen I, and other parents like me, have been silenced. That is the reality.

It’s very frustrating that a piece of legislation has been used in this way. 

Everyone agrees that it’s wrong, everyone agrees that it needs to be amended, and yet three months later, it’s still here.

The damage this legal change does to victims in reality and potentially, is huge.

Last year I could shout my children’s names to the world. There were no constraints on me talking about [Child A and B]. Now I’m having to censor everything that I say.

And it anonymises the victims.

When you can’t put a name or a face to a victim, they become almost inconsequential, they’re not part of a process. And through no fault of anybody’s, they end up forgotten, in a way.

There’s an injustice when I can’t speak and mention my childrens’ names.

I don’t think I’d be prosecuted for talking about my children but under the law, I now could be. That’s an incredibly strange place to be in.

I’ve been very proud to talk about [Child A and B] over the years.

Why should I be silenced by what I consider the misinterpretation of a piece of legislation?

I spoke to a mother in one of the recent cases and I know the hurt that’s there for her. She kept things very private up until the trial. And right now, all she wants is for the world to know her son — not as a victim, not just about what happened to him — but about him, for him to be remembered. But that right, the right to be remembered, has been taken away.

It’s taking the choice away from grieving parents to talk about our children in public. 

And while it’s silencing me and other parents it's protecting no one but the perpetrators.

That is the greatest injustice of this, that it protects the perpetrator. 

It’s frustrating and it knocks my confidence in the system itself.

It makes me question what else could be lurking in tiny paragraphs in legislation that could suddenly be misinterpreted or misused.

I understand on paper how it was interpreted this way if you take the words of section 252 of the Children's Act literally but why was it brought up now? Why 20 years later? Who’s gaining from it ultimately? 

But I do understand why the Court of Appeal couldn’t overturn it. The Judge there recognised that it needed to be amended but that required a change to the legislation.

Jim O’Callaghan [TD] had an amendment written within days of the ruling from the Court of Appeal which he introduced to the Dáil on Wednesday. 

And [Minister] Helen McEntee is introducing legislation next week. 

But why is it taking so long to change?

Everyone recognises that it’s wrong yet it still hasn’t been fixed.

Ireland's forgotten children

Child homicide victims are becoming Ireland’s “forgotten children” since a new interpretation of the 20-year-old Children’s Act suddenly banned them from being named.

Although the 2001 act was designed to protect children, this new interpretation only protects perpetrators, stripping victims and their loved ones of the right to speak out, grieving families, lawyers, and politicians agree.

A child victim of crime’s anonymity has always been protected under section 252 of the act, but a deceased child could be named until last October when the Court of Appeal upheld a new interpretation, stating that a child victim of crime’s anonymity must be protected — whether alive or dead.

A perpetrator's anonymity is also protected if naming them would reveal the identity of the child — as if the killer was a relative.

The change was set in motion in 2019 in a case in which a woman, Ms C, said that she killed her three-year-old daughter but pleaded not guilty to murder due to insanity.

Justice minister Helen McEntee has committed to bringing a memo to Government next week, outlining how she proposes to deal with these matters, and will seek to introduce Government amendments to Senator Michael McDowell’s proposed Bill in the Seanad in the coming weeks.

The main issues which will be addressed are:

• Allowing a child's identity to be published in any proceedings involving the death of a child;
• Allowing the identity of a person who is accused or convicted in relation to those proceedings to be published.

"This will ensure that parents in these cases can speak publicly about their child in such circumstances," a statement from the Department of Justice said.

"Minister McEntee is very conscious of the effect the decision of the Court of Appeal has had, particularly on the families of child murder victims, and is fully committed to addressing the main issues of concern that have arisen."

Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan, who has also proposed a bill to amend the legislation, said that legislation could be passed quickly "if the political commitment was there".

He said: “This should be done in the next four to six weeks. You could get it through the Dáil all in one day. Then it could go to the Seanad.

"It’s been pretty horrendous [for families impacted].

"There’s no logic to it. The reason a children’s act was introduced was to protect children, and a dead child is getting no protection from being airbrushed from history,” Mr O'Callaghan said. 

One parent whose three children were killed said that the legislative change cannot come quickly enough.

“[Child A, B, and C] have names and I need to be able to shout their names from the rooftops. I need to talk about [Child A, B, and C] and I need to celebrate their all-too-short lives. I’m only seeking that child victims be named so as to help us heal.

“Another week commences and my children still cannot be named. Their names however, are written in stone.”

A mother whose two daughters were killed by their father explains how the new interpretation of section 252 of the Children's Act means that the legislation now fails to fully protect children.

These are Ireland's forgotten children.

Their deaths are now being hidden.

No law should prevent a parent from speaking out about their child, especially if they’ve been murdered.

Taking that right away from parents is unspeakable really. 

If parents can’t speak out about their childrens’ deaths, how will changes happen? How will we prevent these terrible cases from happening again in the future?

I’ve been compiling statistics on child deaths for years but this will now be even harder to do. And if we have no statistics, how can we understand the scale of the problem?

The public has a right to know how often children are being murdered in Ireland. And in what areas. 

But the Children's Act is now preventing people from learning about these horrific cases.

I can’t see how this is protecting children in any way when they’re already dead.

Looking back to my own family tragedy, if it had applied to me, I wouldn’t have been able to speak out publicly.

I believe politicians react more and change things if they’re covered in the media.

When you don’t report on something, you’re not speaking out about it.

I know the law doesn’t bring emotions into it, but this act does not take into account the feelings of parents or surviving family at all.

Hopefully it will be changed. At the moment, this is protecting the perpetrator not the child.

There have been a few cases already since the ruling where the children have not been named at all.

They are the forgotten children.

In a recent case, a woman’s child was murdered but now she can’t speak publicly, she can’t mention her own child’s name, because of this re-interpretation of this act.

I hope Minister McEntee will change it because there will be other cases coming to trial soon where children have been killed, either by a parent or not, and their names cannot be mentioned in public.

I know Jim O’Callaghan had put a bill together, I hope it’s passed.

I can’t understand it. Section 252 was always there. Who is it now protecting?

Imagine not being allowed to speak about your own child?