The State has not met commitments given to the High Court to provide new units for at-risk children, and a high-support unit for troubled children, the High Court was told yesterday.
Mr Justice Kelly yesterday said the delay in Co Monaghan facility for troubled children was due to "unseemly bureaucratic wrangle" between Government departments over money.
Mr Justice Kelly was told that some units will now not be available until the end of 2001. The places at a 12-bed unit at Castleblayney were expected to be available in the middle of next year but yesterday the court was told they would would not be available until the end of next year at the earliest. The unit is to be housed in a former Army barracks, and the land has not yet been transferred from the Department of Defence to the North Eastern Health Board. The judge was told the Department of Defence, or Finance, wanted payment for the lands held over until next year.
Mr Justice Kelly said he was alarmed about a Government department deliberately deferring a transfer of lands to be used for troubled children for "an accountancy exercise".
The judge was reviewing progress made by the State towards implementing proposals for high-support and secure places for at-risk children. In April the court heard that the Department of Health and Children had approved proposals to more than treble the number of such places by next year. Yesterday Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, for the State, presented a report on progress made towards providing the facilities. Mr Eamon Corcoran of the Department's Childcare Policy Unit, in evidence, agreed there had been some "slippage" in meeting the deadlines for the new high-support facilities.
There would be a total of 155 high-support and secure-unit places provided by the Department of Health, through the health boards, across the State. That figure was made up of 36 secure places and 119 high-support.
A Social Services Inspectorate had been set up, and the department was conducting a review of foster-care services to ensure that such services were adequately supported. Twelve pilot projects to prevent at-risk children engaging in forms of anti-social behaviour were in place, and the Children Bill was recently published. An additional £30 million would be allocated next year to support the further development of childcare services.
Mr Corcoran said he believed the 155 places would be sufficient to meet the needs of children at risk across the State because of the development of early intervention and other services by the department.
He also said that a 24-bed high-support facility being built by the Eastern Health Board (included in the 155 total) would not be fully utilised all the time and could cater for children from other health board areas.
Questioned about that view by the judge, who pointed out he had had to send children to St Patrick's Institution because there were no places available for them, Mr Corcoran said he believed the EHB did not share his view regarding the likely availability of places.
Asked by Mr Gerry Durcan SC, for a 16-year-old boy who had challenged the State's failure to provide him with appropriate residential care, if it was now the department's policy that places would be freed up in the EHB region, Mr Corcoran said he personally felt there could be places available, but the issue had to be "thrashed out". The policy was to bring the total number of places up to 155, and the question of usage of these was separate.
Mr Rory O'Killeen of the Department of Education said it provided 165 places in a number of residential units for children who were on remand or convicted on criminal charges. It planned to increase that number by 24.
It also had a "master plan" for rebuilding State remand centres. Mr O'Killeen said the department had advanced a number of educational initiatives which had as their focus early intervention for children with difficulties.
Early initiatives to help children and families under pressure would lead to halving the need for secure and high-support accommodation. He agreed with Mr Durcan it could take five years before results of the various intervention programmes became apparent.
The hearing resumes next Tuesday.
