A healthy teenager in State care must spend the weekend in hospital “as a last resort” after gardaí were unable to transport him to a Tusla emergency placement in Dublin due to the fuel protests, a court has heard.
At the family law court a senior social care worker with Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, said the 14-year-old has been accepted as “a social admission” to the hospital where he is to remain for the weekend.
The boy has already spent two nights at the hospital after gardaí invoked special powers under the Childcare Act after his mother said she could no longer care for him.
The Tusla social care worker said the agency’s “out of hours” service had identified an emergency placement in Dublin on Wednesday night “but due to the protests and the current crisis on the motorways gardaí were unable to transport to the Dublin area”.
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She said the placement in Dublin involved “a hotel room with staff” but the boy was instead admitted to the hospital as a “social admission”.
Judge Adrian Harris described the boy’s continuing placement in the hospital as “untenable and entirely unsatisfactory” and urged Tusla to find an alternative placement for the boy “as a matter of urgency”.
On Thursday the judge granted Tusla an eight-day emergency care order for the boy.
“The parents have put their hands up and have tried everything but feel that matters have escalated beyond their control at the moment,” he said.
The Tusla worker told the judge on Friday that Tusla arranged for the social admission to the hospital “as a last resort”.
The agency’s solicitor Kevin Sherry, told the judge the hospital has confirmed that the boy can remain at the hospital over the weekend.
He acknowledged this had been “deemed unsatisfactory by the court” and he agreed with that view.
“Despite endeavours by the agency, there has been no alternatives sourced,” he said.
The senior Tusla care worker said every avenue has been explored and exhausted and escalated to senior management to get the teenager an alternative placement.
The social worker said the mother contacted the gardaí this week after her son allegedly broke down the door to her “safe space” in the home, her bedroom, and “subsequently thrashed the room looking for the phone his mother was refusing to give to her son”.
She said he also caused damage to other parts of the home.
[ The three reasons why the Government refuses to meet the fuel protestersOpens in new window ]
The Tusla worker said the mother had confiscated the phone a number of months ago after her son posted videos of certain content on the phone.
The worker agreed with Tusla’s solicitor that the boy’s mobile phone “seems to be the trigger for the latest incident”.
The social worker said gardaí invoked Section 12 of the Childcare Act “after the mother felt in fear for her own safety in the home and felt that she wasn’t able to provide safe care to her son”.
The worker said fresh attempts would be made on Monday for an alternative placement for the teenager. The judge adjourned the case to Wednesday.
