President signs bill to end ban on naming child murder victims

Justice Minister Helen McEntee will sign a commencement order and the bill will become law, changing an anomaly that had become known just before Christmas. Picture: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie

The president has signed a bill that paves the way for the end of a ban on the naming of child murder victims.

Michael D Higgins signed the Children (Amendment) Bill 2021 on Monday, after it passed all stages of the Oireachtas last week. 

Justice Minister Helen McEntee will sign a commencement order and the bill will become law, changing an anomaly that had become known just before Christmas.

The Government was forced to introduce the fresh legislation after the Court of Appeal rejected an application by several media outlets to be allowed to name a woman who smothered her three-year-old child to death with a pillow last October.

Mr Justice Michael White ordered that the deceased child should not be identified and, as a consequence, the woman cannot be named as to do so would identify the dead child.

The judge said that, under Section 252 of the Children Act 2001, it was an offence to publish anything that could identify a child who is an alleged victim of an offence. 

Media outlets had challenged that interpretation of the legislation, however, Mr Justice George Birmingham said the ruling was "almost beyond argument".

The bill signed on Monday reverses this ruling by disapplying or removing the restrictions in proceedings that relate to the death of a child, subject to exceptions. 

If there is a deceased child and no other child involved, then there are no restrictions on identifying the deceased child.

Families of children who had been killed have campaigned for the law, with the mother of an 11-year-old boy making an appeal on the steps of the Central Criminal Court in February after the boy's uncle was sentenced for his murder.