Homeless teenager spent night in internet cafe, says Shatter

A HOMELESS Dublin teenager spent last Tuesday night in an internet cafe because the HSE had no suitable accommodation for him, Fine Gael spokesman on children Alan Shatter told the Dáil.

He said the 16 year old had been going through the care system for approximately 2½ years.

“He is awaiting psychiatric assessment, but he has fallen into an age band where he is not considered either a child or an adult because he is between 16 and 18 years,” he added. “He is no longer in the education system, he is becoming drug-dependent and he is falling into a street life where he will be exposed to drug running and prostitution.”

Mr Shatter asked Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews to find out what was happening to the teenager and “how any 16 year old could be left overnight in an internet cafe”.

He added: “This is a troubled young person who needs serious coherent and co-ordinated intervention and who is being failed . . . and emergency social workers, who are dealing with this young man, are at their wits’ end to get a response from management within the HSE.”

Mr Shatter also referred to the case of a 17-year-old boy with severe mental health difficulties. There had been no follow-up to a psychiatric assessment, he added.

The boy, he said, was “floating between two social work areas, Naas and Tralee, neither of which would take responsibility for dealing with him”.

He added that the boy came from a background in which, it was believed, he had been seriously sexually abused.

Mr Shatter was speaking during a debate on the report from the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children, chaired by Fianna Fáil TD Mary O’Rourke.

Ms O’Rourke said the committee’s first, and most important, recommendation was a proposal for a constitutional amendment to enshrine and enhance the protection of the rights of children. “I am pleased that we were able to reach cross-party consensus on the proposed wording,” she added.

Labour’s Brendan Howlin said the committee had engaged in a balancing act, and whether they had got the balance right would be determined by the people’s assent in a referendum. “I am strongly of the view, shared by those who have spoken, that this will be a substantial step forward in a long journey to deal with the issue of the rights of children.”

Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said that if the amendment was enshrined in the Constitution, the State would have sufficient legal power to intervene on behalf of all children at risk, regardless of their parents’ marital status.