Background
The mother challenged a District Court order directing the resumption of access between her daughter and the child’s father. The composite order also addressed handovers, counselling, school information, telephone contact and a mental-health assessment, and discharged a protection order benefiting the mother.
At the October 2025 hearing, the District Court relied on a section 32 expert report based on interviews conducted approximately a year earlier, before reported self-harm, suicidal ideation and other significant developments. The expert heard the parents’ evidence, consulted privately with each parent and then offered expanded opinions about the evidence and possible orders. The mother argued that the child’s current views had not been ascertained, the expert had effectively become a co-assessor, she had no effective opportunity to cross-examine the expert on the expanded evidence, and the judge had prematurely decided disputed issues.
The Court’s Holding
The High Court held that this was an exceptional case in which judicial review was available despite the mother’s unexhausted right to a rehearing before the Circuit Court. The District Court process was fundamentally flawed: it failed, so far as practicable, to ascertain and give due weight to the child’s contemporary views; blurred the boundary between expert witness and judicial decision-maker; denied the mother an effective opportunity to test materially expanded expert evidence; and created an objective appearance of premature judgment.
The court stated that certiorari would be granted quashing the District Court’s composite order in its entirety, which would revive the protection order. It proposed remitting the custody and access proceedings for reconsideration by a different District Court judge, while allowing the parties to make submissions if they sought a different form of order. The broader relief sought concerning national regulation, accreditation and training of section 32 experts was refused.
Key Takeaways
- A court deciding custody or access must, so far as practicable, ascertain a capable child’s sufficiently current views and give them due weight; concern about possible influence does not eliminate that obligation.
- A court-appointed expert assists through evidence but cannot share the court’s adjudicative role, evaluate the case as a co-assessor or determine which order serves the child’s best interests.
- When an expert materially expands an opinion during a hearing, affected parties must receive an effective opportunity to test that evidence, and judicial remarks must not convey that disputed issues have already been decided.
Why It Matters
The judgment gives practical guidance for Irish custody and access hearings involving section 32 experts. It emphasizes that the child’s voice, independent judicial decision-making and meaningful testing of expert evidence are fundamental features of the process, not errors that must invariably be left to correction on appeal.
It also illustrates the narrow circumstances in which the High Court may exercise judicial-review jurisdiction despite an available statutory appeal: where defects undermine fundamental requirements and the integrity of the first-instance adjudication itself.