Tusla may face “criminal liability” for funding and putting vulnerable children in unregistered, unregulated placements, a solicitor has told a Dublin District Court.
A highly troubled child was in an unregistered placement, known as a special emergency arrangement (SEA), that was so unsuitable it was harming them, the court heard on Thursday.
Judge Conor Fottrell said it was “extraordinary” that returning the child to the SEA from which they had absconded would be “actually placing the child at risk”.
The court granted an extension to the child’s interim care order to Wednesday.
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Gareth Noble, solicitor for the child’s court-appointed advocate, said that if a registered placement was not identified by then he “could well” ask the court to lift the in camera rule (which restricts disclosure about the case) to enable a complaint to “the relevant authorities” about the legality of keeping the child in an SEA.
SEAs, provided by private operators, do not comply with national standards and are not inspected by the Health Information and Quality Authority. Concerns have grown about SEA staff ratios, qualifications and their suitability for highly troubled, at-risk children.
Noble said SEAs could be illegal under the 1991 Childcare Act.
Section 60 states: “A person shall not carry on a children’s residential centre unless the centre is registered,” and, “Any person who contravenes a provision of this section shall be guilty of an offence.”
Tusla was “effectively giving the green light to children being placed in such an unapproved centre” and was funding “unapproved, unregistered centres”, said Noble.
“If you have a person guilty of a criminal offence for running such a centre, the question arises as to whether or not there is criminal liability attaching to [Tusla] in facilitating what could be a criminal offence,” he said.
The court heard staff in the placement had not noticed the child had gone missing “for a period”. The child has been described in court as being “at very high risk” of death due to being groomed by organised criminals and travelling in stolen cars.
The adolescent had been in the care of a grandparent who was “unable” to keep them from older peers’ influence. The grandparent was “burned out” and consented to the child coming into interim care last year.
Though the case was treated “with highest priority by national placement team ... there are little to no residential placements available at the moment”, a solicitor for Tusla said.
The child was “bright, intelligent, insightful” but had “lost hope” of returning to their grandparent, said their social worker.
She spoke to the child by phone, who “was very clearly with older peers or adults ... directing ... what to say. [The child] does not want to be in care ... [and] wants to be in [their grandparent]’s care”.
She said: “This is the child I am most worried about ... I genuinely believe there is a risk to this [child’s] life.” An application for special care was being “fast-tracked”.
The judge said “every effort” must be made to find the child “as soon as possible” given the “very high risk” to their life.
The ongoing use of SEAs was a “national scandal” that “must end”, he said.
