Troubled girl is walking streets without proper care, court told

A troubled girl who has been in health board care for more than a year remains without appropriate education, therapy or support services, the High Court has been told. She has not attended school for a year and had only sporadic schooling before that.

She comes from a dysfunctional family and was abandoned by her mother, who was herself abused by the girl's father.

Reports by professionals who assessed the 14-year-old girl concluded that the child required to be placed in a high-support unit as she was seriously at risk from sexual exploitation and substance abuse. However, she had been placed in an open unit and was "walking the streets".

Mr Justice Kearns yesterday granted leave to Mr John O'Hanlon, for the girl's court-appointed guardian, to seek a declaration, in judicial review proceedings, that the Ministers for Education and Science and for Health and Children and the East Coast Area Health Board are depriving the girl of her constitutional rights and her rights under the Education and Child Care Acts.

The girl is one of several children, one of whom has died and several others of whom are in various care placements. Her family came to the attention of the social services in 1995 amid concerns of domestic violence and sexual abuse of the girl and two of her sisters by a neighbour.

Her mother left for England some years later with her daughters but sent them back unaccompanied a month later to Ireland. The children arrived at a port and were placed in foster homes. The girl was aged nine at that time. She alleged she was sexually abused in one of the foster homes.

In 2000 the girl and her siblings returned to their mother in England, but that arrangement broke down due to difficulties with the mother's partner.

The mother eventually returned to Ireland with four of the children but then abandoned them, returning to England only with the youngest child and without telling the others. They remained in Ireland in a variety of care arrangements, and the girl was moved to the open unit in summer last year.

Throughout these years the girl attended school only sporadically and in several schools. She was said to have problems with aggression and to be involved in alcohol, drug misuse and sexual activity when absent from the existing unit.

Her guardian has expressed concern that, unless she gets an appropriate place, her behaviour will continue to deteriorate significantly.

In March last she was charged with three counts of assaulting care staff and, in the absence of any place for her in a high support unit, is on bail on those charges.