'The health board has no interest in this young girl. Has anyone gone out to her, to see if she is dead or alive?'

The father, stressed, despairing and unshaven, looked like he couldn't take much more.

"I'm crying out for help," he said as his 17-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son stood before the Children's Court on a range of charges relating to public order and breach of bail conditions.

"I'm a lone parent . . . I have a nine-year-old girl and a brain-damaged young fella who's 20," the man said, as his daughter nonchalantly chewed some gum beside him.

"There's a big health board issue here. My daughter needs psychiatric care. When she was 14, they just let her go. There was a big report done when the family broke up, but the social worker said she was going off to Australia. I paid my taxes and did everything, so why aren't they contributing anything?"

Gardaí were in court to ask the judge that the two children, who they said had repeatedly breached their bail conditions and were re-offending, be placed in custody.

One garda, with frustration in his voice, said they were both required to sign-on daily at the local station, but they had failed to do so even once.

However, there were no residential places available in Dublin for the boy, while the only option for the girl was a cell in Mountjoy jail.

The boy, who was accused, among other things, of breaking an evening curfew, looked indifferently at Judge Angela Ní Chondúin. "What will you do if you get out on bail?" the judge asked the boy, who began to look away from her. "Breach every bail condition again? Look at me when I'm talking to you."

The girl, with long hair and a white jacket, looked privately amused and continued to chew as the judge spoke.

"Will you bother to sign-on if you are given bail?" the judge said. "Do you think this is all a huge joke? You are wasting the time of all of these people here."

The girl's barrister, provided under the legal aid system, said that while she was eligible to go to Mountjoy, there was a question mark over the girl's maturity.

"Her birth certificate says she is 17, but it doesn't necessarily indicate her maturity. For example, in similar circumstances, she said she would rather go to Mountjoy than Oberstown because there was a TV there," her barrister, Dermot O'Connell, said.

"She is now without a social worker for the last two years. Since the last social worker left, no one was appointed to the family. As for psychological care, the health board says it is a 'high priority'."

The father, in a worn jacket and patterned jumper, had been sitting down at the beginning of the court hearing. But by now the frustration was too much. He stood up beside his daughter, interrupted the barrister, and voiced his anger.

"She needs psychiatric care," he said urgently. "She was in Oberstown for over a year and she didn't get any helps. The health board has a lot to answer for."

The judge, calmly assessing both cases, released the girl and boy on bail under strict conditions and directed that the health board provide immediate assistance to the girl.

"The health board has no interest in this young girl," Judge Ní Chondúin commented sadly. "Has anyone gone out to her, to see if she is dead or alive? This is a case which is known to them. It's not something new. It's as if they dumped the file."

The judge, turning to the girl, said she looked like someone who still had much potential.