Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2025
Public bill · Government · Presented
Updates Ireland’s child care laws to strengthen how children are protected, cared for, and heard in decisions about their lives. It tightens rules on voluntary care, emergency and interim care orders, accommodation for homeless or abandoned children, and gives foster carers and relatives a quicker route to seek stronger rights in stable placements. It also creates a new cross-agency committee, requires public bodies to cooperate and share information where needed, and modernises reporting, vetting, and child-protection rules to improve coordination and oversight.
Formal long title
Bill entitled an Act to amend and extend the Child Care Act 1991; to provide for the establishment and functions of a committee to be known as An Coiste Forfheidhmithe agus Idirghníomhaireachta um Chúram Leanaí; to make further and better provision in relation to the care and protection of children including by specifying principles to guide the Child and Family Agency in performing its functions and by providing for certain bodies to cooperate with each other; to give further effect to Directive 2011/93/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011; to amend the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012 and the Child and Family Agency Act 2013; and to provide for related matters.
Last updated 13 March 2026
- Minister for Children, Disability and Equality Primary
- First StageDáil
- Second StageDáil
- Committee StageDáil Current