Concern over lack of special care bed for troubled boy

No special care bed is available for a boy who vomited up almost 40 bags of crack cocaine, the High Court has heard.

The boy, who is using fentanyl, is now missing. His case was before the High Court yesterday and was reported in the Irish Times.

The court heard there was no special care bed available for him, nor were beds available for two teenage girls, one of them aged just 14, who were being abused by multiple men.

The special care service is supposed to provide secure intervention for young people with extremely troubled lives, but because of staff shortages, just 13 of its 26 beds are currently available.

Speaking on RTÉ's News at One programme, Deputy Chief Executive of the Children's Rights Alliance Julie Ahern said that she was concerned for the boy's safety and welfare.

"These are really tough cases to read about, especially when you see that these are really vulnerable children," she said.

"When you read about this particular case, this young boy who has been through so much and to know now that he's still missing... I'm really concerned about both his safety and welfare but also the fact that we're seeing these cases over and over again and the bigger issues they are pointed to within our child protection system that we need to fix."

Ms Ahern said that a lack of special care places has been a longstanding problem.

"We've been hearing about this for a long time," she said.

"Really, you need to think about it in terms of coming from a place of a lack of investment within our child protection and welfare services.

"Special care exists as a final safety net for children and young people who need really acute and specialist care. It's a serious matter to be referred to a special care bed. You're essentially depriving someone of their liberty and it has to be approved by the courts for this to happen to a child."

Ms Ahern said that some of society's most vulnerable children have been "let down time and time again".

"HIQA are pointing to the issue that we have known for a very long time, that there is an underinvestment in special care. That means there's not enough staff," she said.

"These staff need appropriate pay and conditions that recognise that, so we can get some of the best people into the special care systems that they stay there, and that they use their specialist knowledge to really support some of these children who've been through so much in their young lives.

"This is some of the hardest work that is done in our child protection system," she added.

Ms Ahern said that children would ideally receive supports in services in the community before there is an escalation to national services.

"But we know that Tusla's budget has not increased in pace with the demand that they've been seeing. And in light of that, we are seeing that there's further pressure being put on these services," she said.

"We're seeing more acute needs presenting to these services to provide support for children and young people. This is why we're ending up in a position where we are in crisis mode with our child protection services constantly battling fires.

"If we don't invest... in early intervention and prevention, we're not going to see a change," added Ms Ahern.