Care orders were issued earlier this year for infants who were offered for online sexual abuse and exposed to an environment where hard drugs were present, according to a new report.
The Child Care Law Reporting Project today published 30 new childcare cases, including stories of minors who were unable to find suitable treatment in Ireland when seeking to return home from facilities in other jurisdictions.
In a recent District Court ruling, a young child was ordered to be placed in care until the age of 18 after her father offered to sexually abuse her online.
The man said he would broadcast the abuse via a webcam when contacted by another user of an internet chatroom who turned out to be an undercover police officer from a different country.
The child's mother had been groomed by his father from the age of 13 or 14 before eventually giving birth to the child at the age of 18, according to a submission by the Child and Family Agency.
Sexually exploited
She denied involvement in any abuse but admitted to being aware of child pornography images held on her husband’s computer and said it was possible that he had sexually exploited their daughter in the past. The man was arrested by gardaí but has since left the jurisdiction.
Another District Court sitting heard details of a young child who was taken away from his parents after gardaí discovered him in a car where heroin, needles and other drug-taking paraphernalia were present. The child’s parents were homeless drug addicts who had admitted to taking drugs earlier that day and were preparing to do so again, gardaí said.
The child was discovered in the back seat of the car beside an unrelated adult male on a near-freezing night.
The toddler was subsequently taken to a hospital by a garda, who noticed a cut across his throat which the child said was a knife wound inflicted by his father.
Evidence suggested that his mother would usually sneak them into her brother’s hostel, but didn’t return on the night in question after he hit her over the head with a hatchet.
An interim care order for the child was granted.
"Some of the cases we publish . . . are very shocking and highlight the importance of the vigilance of international police forces' specialist units monitoring such activity," said project director Dr Carol Coulter.
“However, most of the cases we report show, again, how most parents whose children come to the attention of social services are themselves vulnerable, may be suffering from cognitive or other disabilities, may have no experience of normal family life and have been in care themselves.”
The latest tranche of cases reveal how a child who was receiving psychiatric care abroad felt his human rights were being infringed as he could not return home due to a lack of suitable services.