A number of troubled children won injunctions against the State yesterday in the High Court, compelling it to build more than 40 special care units for such children in the seven health board areas outside the Eastern Health Board.
Mr Justice Kelly said the continuing failure of the State to meet the needs of children at risk - five years after they were declared by the courts - was "a scandal". Even with the orders he had made, it would be 2002 before the constitutional rights of the children would be upheld, because the last of the units would not be built until then.
The effect of the State's failure was that some troubled children had become adults without their constitutional rights ever having been met, the judge said. He found there had been culpable slippage by the Department of Health in adhering to its own timescales for the development of the units.
"These children and others like them are at an important stage in their development. Much can be done for them. Their future lives as adults can be influenced for good, but only if the appropriate facilities are available. They have a right to them."
The effect of the injunctions - which were strongly resisted by the State - is that the Minister for Health will have to adhere to the latest time scales set by his own Department for the provision of the units.
This will mean some 40 extra places will be available in counties Monaghan, Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, Waterford, Cork as well on other sites not yet specified in the Mid Western Health Board and Southern health board regions. The places will be available from May to early 2002.
In resisting the injunctions, the State had argued the children had no locus
standi to seek them and that the orders were not specific and trespassed onto the area of Government policy.