Mother praised for turning life around after drug addiction

A mother praised for turning her life around after drug addiction wants to see her child for more than the 90 minutes, once a month she now gets with the girl.

Child and Family agency Tusla was on Thursday granted a care order in respect of a child in the care of relatives. The order applies until the child, in primary school, reaches the age of 18.

The Family Court heard that when the child initially went into the care of relatives several years ago, the mother was suffering from a drug addition and was in an abusive relationship with the father, who was also addicted to drugs.

The court heard that since then, the mother had turned her life around and is now living drug free. She has also managed to leave the abusive relationship in which she was in, and successfully parent another child of her’s.

The mother, who was present in court, consented to the care order because she felt that at this time she could not provide adequate care to the child as her accommodation was quite small.

However, her legal representative Patricia Carroll said she was "quite anxious" to increase time spent with her child.

Currently, the mother sees her child once a month for 1½ hours at a time.

Ms Carroll said the mother is keen to have her child stay with her at weekends.

Lively child

The court-appointed guardian, who represents the child’s interests during proceedings, said the child was lively and bubbly, and wanted to be famous later on in life.

The guardian said meetings between the mother and child had gone well over the past year and the mother was well capable of working on improving the quality of their meetings.

However, a social worker for Tusla said the mother would have to do a significant amount of work before access was increased, including improved engagement with services and working on the relationship with her child.

Judge Marie Quirke praised the mother for the enormous mental and physical energy she had put into making positive changes in her life.

She noted the father’s whereabouts were unknown and that he had not engaged in any way with the child.

“In contrast, [the mother] has achieved what is a huge task,” said Judge Quirke. “So she needs to be applauded for what she has done.”

The mother had tears in her eyes as Judge Quirke continued the care order until the child reaches the age of 18.