Big regional variations in childcare orders sought

There are major variations in the number of childcare orders being sought in the courts in different parts of the country, latest figures show.

The figures are contained in an analysis of Courts Service figures on childcare cases for 2014 by the Child Care Law Reporting Project.

The initiative was established in recent years to examine and report on childcare proceedings which are typically held in private.

Overall, the District Court dealt with just over 9,800 different applications in 2014, up from about 8,700 in 2013.

The report notes these figures should be treated with caution; they do not represent the number of children taken into care, as many are repeat applications for the same child.

The figures show major differences in the volume of applications in towns of roughly similar size. For example, Letterkenny and Mallow, at opposite ends of the country, had 368 and 231 applications respectively last year.

By contrast, a number of medium-sized midland towns such as Athlone, Mullingar and Portlaoise have reported an average of about 37 cases each.

Others areas such as Bray and Galway also reported a lower number of applications than might be expected given their size and that of their hinterland.

The Courts Service does not have a standard national template for recording family law statistics, so different District Court offices may do so differently.