Minister's appeal a waste, says judge

A High Court judge yesterday described as "a colossal waste of taxpayers' money" a decision by the Minister for Health and Children to appeal to the Supreme Court against an order directing adherence to the Minister's own time-scales for the building of high-support and secure units for troubled children across the State.

While the Minister was entitled to appeal the order, the decision to do so did not square with the Minister's stated commitment to build the units, Mr Justice Kelly said. He added that the money being spent on taking the appeal would be better spent on providing facilities for children at risk.

There was an ever-increasing number of children with the most profound problems coming before the courts but he was "by no means sure the Minister has a real appreciation of the problem", the judge said.

Each case of a child "involves a real person with real problems, not a statistic or piece of paper or a file", he added. The High Court had in 1995 declared such children had constitutional rights to appropriate care and accommodation but the courts had been concerned since with the State's failure to vindicate those rights.

Mr Paul Barron, assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Children, said the Minister of State for Children, Ms Mary Hanafin, was absolutely committed to the provision of services for disturbed children and had asked him to convey this to the court. There was no change in her intentions, he said.

He said the Minister had given a lot of attention to the situation of the children and was driving, as fast as she could through the health boards, the building of high-support and secure units in the seven health board areas outside the East Coast Area Health Board (ECAHB). The Minister had met this week with the chief executive officers of the health boards and stressed there was to be no delay in meeting the timescales.

Mr Barron said there was no proposal to build a secure adolescent psychiatric unit. He did not believe there was a need for such a unit. It would run counter to Government policy in the area of mental health services which envisaged a move from hospital to community settings.

Mr Justice Kelly asked if the Minister was familiar with the cases of disturbed children before the courts. While not all children would need psychiatric input, some did. Mr Barron said the policy was to bring in such input through the local psychiatric services or other arrangements.

Mr Justice Kelly said he had, at previous court hearings, been assured of the Minister's commitment to the children and given details when units would be built. When he had reviewed the situation regarding the building of units in the seven health board areas outside the ECAHB, he found the timescales were not being adhered to and there was culpable slippage on the part of the Department. Eventually, some children had applied to the court for orders directing the Minister to adhere to the time-scales.

The judge said rather than make the orders, he had asked for an undertaking that the timescales would be adhered to but this was refused, he was told, on the basis of a policy decision taken at the highest level in the Department. He then made the orders which did no more than require the Minister to do what the court had been told would be done. The Minister had now appealed the orders.

How did the decision to appeal square with the Department's stated commitment to the children, the judge asked.

Mr Barron said the appeal was for legal reasons and could have no effect on what was happening on the ground in relation to providing the facilities. Mr Feichin McDonagh SC, for the Minister, said the appeal raised important constitutional issues regarding the separation of powers and denied it was "a lawyer's holiday".

Mr Justice Kelly noted he had made orders in July 1998 directing that units be built at Ballydowd and Portrane in Dublin and those orders had not been appealed.

Also yesterday, Mr Justice Kelly directed the holding today of an inquiry into the legality of the detention of a troubled 15-year-old boy at Store Street Garda station. The court was told the boy was sent to Oberstown remand centre by the District Court but there was no place for him and he was detained at Store Street on Wednesday night and remained there.