The Government was yesterday strongly criticised for spending £30 million on Millennium projects while failing to provide a special treatment centre for a 12-year-old boy who, if untreated, could end up a serial rapist.
The criticism came from Cork Corporation and former Southern Health Board member, Cllr Con O'Leary, who has highlighted the lack of treatment facilities in Ireland for children with violent behavioural disorders.
The boy had graphically outlined to psychiatrists and psychologists who had assessed him how he planned to kill women or girls who refused to have sex with him, the High Court was told on Thursday.
The boy first came to the attention of the Southern Health Board in 1995 but the board has been unable to find a secure unit for him over the past four years, the court was told.
Cllr O'Leary was critical of the news that the health board was now looking at finding a secure mental hospital in which to detain and treat the boy because of the lack of any specialised facility to deal with such behavioural problems.
Cllr O'Leary said: "This is obscene - we have a young fellow with serious problems and no where to put him. He's going to end up in an adult psychiatric institution because there is no special facility for kids like him."
"And at the same time we're spending £30 million on Millennium projects - there's something very wrong there," said Cllr O'Leary, who last year highlighted another case where a 15-year-old boy was held in an adult psychiatric unit.
Cllr O'Leary said that there were currently 100 Irish children being treated for a variety of behavioural disorders in centres abroad because of the lack of facilities here - and at considerable cost to Irish health boards.
"We're exporting our problems again - we should set up a special centre here in Ireland to treat them. We have plenty of qualified staff with the necessary expertise - what we lack are the proper facilities."