A High Court inquiry into the escape of a 15-year-old girl from health board care has been fixed for December 5th after the East Coast Area Health Board yesterday indicated it would not challenge the court's jurisdiction to hold the inquiry. Kim O'Donovan was found dead of a suspected drug overdose last August.
Mr Justice Kelly said he appreciated such an inquiry was "unusual and, perhaps, unprecedented", but it was a matter of great concern that a child had died while in health board care. He was grateful to the East Coast Area Health Board and the State for facilitating the inquiry which would proceed, subject to the Garda Commissioner considering his position on the jurisdiction point, on December 5th.
The inquiry will investigate how the girl escaped from Newtown House in Co Wicklow and what efforts were made to find her before she was found dead on August 24th, almost a month later, in a Dublin city B & B.
Yesterday, Mr Patrick MacEntee SC said the board was consenting to an inquiry into the matters outlined by the judge. How ever, in relation to wider matters raised by Mr Cormac Corrigan SC, for the girl's parents, it would be premature to outline the board's views.
Mr MacEntee said a matter relating to another child, which was raised by the girl in a letter to the judge dated July 29th, had been the subject of an inquiry before the letter was written. In relation to another matter the child complained of, it would have been inappropriate to bring someone in from another area to investigate that when the child was not there to give her version.
The judge asked Mr Conleth Bradley, for the Garda Commissioner, to inform him next Friday of the commissioner's attitude towards jurisdiction, but said other State arms were not challenging jurisdiction, given the welfare of children was at stake. He would not at this stage direct an inquiry into the wider issues raised by Mr Corrigan.