Insight

The law relating to children in Ireland has grown and developed at an unprecedented rate in recent years. The large volume of domestic legislation and case law in this area led to the recent publication of the second edition of Geoffrey Shannon’s Child Law.

Mr Shannon needs no introduction to anyone practising in the area of family and child law. In addition to being a prolific writer on these subjects, he also enjoys an exceptionally high profile as independent Special Rapporteur for Child Protection, Chairman of the Adoption Authority and the Irish Expert Member of the Commission on European Family Law.

In the preface to this book, Mr Shannon stated that his main objective “was to focus attention on the cataclysmic developments in child law over the last decade and to provide practitioners with a user-friendly resource to help them practise in this evolving area of the law.” Mr Shannon’s book has certainly achieved this in dealing with all aspects of the Irish child law system in a thorough and comprehensive fashion.

The book is a tour de force on all aspects of Irish child law. It contains sixteen chapters and eighteen appendices, ranging from the legal status of the child in Irish society to an analysis of relevant international and European Community law. The book also deals extensively with the position of children in need and children in care. The involvement of children in the Court process, both civil and criminal, is also addressed in detail. Separate chapters are devoted to the topics of adoption, child abduction and immigration and the author also carefully reviews the position of children in private custody, access and maintenance disputes. The final chapter looks at the future of the family and the child under Irish law. This includes a most interesting discussion on the advent of assisted reproductive technologies and the myriad legal and ethical difficulties which they create.

Throughout the book, Mr Shannon also identifies lessons learned and recommendations for reform in the area of child law. In his foreword to the book, Chief Justice John L Murray notes that “this adds to the value of the work promoting as it does, in this context, reasoned debate and discourse which may be a catalyst for change in at least some of the directions signposted by the author….It stands out as an impressive and much-needed reference on the law as it relates to one of our nation’s most valued resources.”

The author is to be congratulated on this excellent publication which I would wholeheartedly recommend to practitioners, academics and students alike. In common with Mr Shannon’s other books, this will certainly be an indispensable resource for all those who practise or have an interest in this area. 

Hilary Coveney is a partner in Matheson Ormsby Prentice and Chair of the Law Society Family Law Committee.

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© Matheson Ormsby Prentice 2010

This article first appeared in Law Society Gazette (15 December 2010).

The Information in this document is provided subject to the Legal Terms and Liability Disclaimer contained on the Matheson Ormsby Prentice website. The material is not intended to provide, and does not constitute, legal or any other advice on any particular matter, and is provided for general information purposes only.

For further information, please contact Hilary Coveney, Partner and Head of the Private Client Litigation and Family Law Group at Matheson Ormsby Prentice; email: hilary.coveney or telephone +353 1 232 2000.