Tusla<\/a> sought a care order for the baby until his 18th birthday was before the court last month. <\/p>\nNeither parent attended the hearing. While both were legally represented their solicitors had not received instructions. <\/p>\n
Tusla had been contacted by a maternity hospital in September 2025, four months before the baby\u2019s birth, due to concerns the mother had not attended antenatal appointments. <\/p>\n
Concerns for her and the baby\u2019s welfare included that \u201cshe was homeless and sleeping rough, and toxicology testing completed late in her pregnancy returned a positive result for heroin, cocaine and cannabis\u201d. <\/p>\n
Her son was born in early January 2026. \u201cFollowing his birth, he presented with withdrawal symptoms including tremors, sneezing, a high-pitched cry and a toxicology test returned a positive result for cocaine,\u201d said the judge.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth parents left the child in the neonatal intensive care unit for long periods of time over the following few days and the mother was discharged from the hospital as she was not present on the ward following the child\u2019s birth.\u201d<\/p>\n
An emergency care order was granted in mid-January, to last a couple of days. The parents agreed to a voluntary care arrangement for eight weeks and a longer-term foster-placement was found, where the infant still lives.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the birth, the mother indicated she did not feel she could care for the baby \u201cas she needed to address her addiction issues first\u201d. She wanted the father or his family to care for the child. There were, however, issues with the vetting process. <\/p>\n
The baby\u2019s social worker arranged parental access visits for three times a week. Despite \u201crepeated efforts to contact the parents\u201d no access happened and they have not had contact with their son since soon after his birth. <\/p>\n
The baby\u2019s court-appointed advocate said he was \u201cabsolutely adored\u201d in his foster family and \u201cso well looked after by other children\u201d there who all \u201cfight over who can hold and look after him when they return home from school\u201d. <\/p>\n
He was \u201calert, smiling\u201d and thriving, she said supporting Tusla\u2019s application for a full care order until boy\u2019s 18th birthday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a very sad case where the application before the court is for a full care order to the age of 18 years in respect of a five-month-old baby,\u201d said the judge. <\/p>\n
The mother \u201cis extremely vulnerable and will require significant help and support in dealing with her difficulties and it will take time for her to address her chronic drug use\u201d.<\/p>\n
Granting the order, the judge said the parents could at any time re-engage with Tusla. \u201cCurrently there is no evidence of any change in relation to their addiction, homelessness, or ability to engage with professionals.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A full care order has been granted for a baby born addicted to cocaine whose parents left him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5721,615,61,60,43,53],"class_list":["post-544021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-district-court","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-tusla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}