Implementation of the Government's recent promise to the High Court to provide 200 new residential places for children in trouble is threatened with serious delay because of a shortage of suitable staff.
The new places, aimed at helping children who might otherwise be on the streets and in trouble with the law, were promised to the High Court by the Department of Health and Children.
However, an examination of the details of the Department documents presented to the court shows there is already a shortage of suitable staff. Despite this, the promise of substantial numbers of extra places was seen as a victory for the court and in particular for Mr Justice Peter Kelly, who will chair a conference in Dublin on marginalised children tonight.
"Judge Peter Kelly has been particularly good on this," according to Mr Pol O Murchu, a solicitor who has been involved in bringing the cases of such children to the High Court for some years. "He has taken the initiative and he has monitored these cases. In the past they weren't monitored - they were put back for six months. He puts them back for two or three months and says - `what are you going to do?' "
In the last year, Mr Justice Kelly has got the Department of Health and Children to research the need throughout the State for residential care for children needing a high level of support. He has also got the Department to make detailed proposals to him on how it intends to address this need.
In two recent reports to the High Court, the Department promised 200 places at an estimated running cost of £100,000 per child per annum. These are made up of:
106 places throughout the State in projects planned by the eight regional health boards and which have been specifically approved by the Department of Health and Children. Most of these places are intended to be available at the end of this year or next year. They include a 24-place facility for the Eastern Health Board due to open at Ballydowd, Lucan, Co Dublin, next spring and another 24-place facility in Portrane planned for early 2001.
The Department is waiting for specific proposals from the eight regional health boards as to where a further 88 places might be located. In addition to finding premises, the health boards must find suitable staff, and the report to the High Court acknowledges that there is a "shortfall of available qualified and suitably trained staff for this service".
The places are urgently needed. According to Mr O Murchu, it happens almost daily in the children's court that "residential places are required for two or three children and there's no place."
Nobody wants to see children locked up as the solution to the problem, he said, and he was heartened by the efforts of the Minister of State for Children, Mr Frank Fahey, to expand the amount of preventative work being done with families.
The Department recently told the High Court that subject to suitable premises being found and staff being available, all the extra places promised could be developed in two years.
While this would represent a major development, observers doubt if it will be possible to find premises and staff within that time. The fate of a promised expansion at the Oberstown campus in Co Dublin suggests that many, if not most, of the new places may not happen for a very long time.
In 1995, the then minister of state for children, Mr Austin Currie, announced an additional 20 reformatory school places at Oberstown. The places have not yet materialised - though the director of Oberstown told Mr Justice Kelly last month that the present Government intends to go ahead with them.
Meanwhile, some children who could have benefited from these places are getting involved in petty crime or spending their time on the streets.
At tonight's conference in the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, chaired by Mr Justice Kelly, an invited audience will hear papers on The Marginalised Child from Mr Justice Barr, Mr John Lonergan, governor of Mountjoy Prison, Sister Stanislaus Kennedy of Focus Ireland, and psychologist Dr Tony Humphreys. It is organised by the Lillie Road Centre Group of Homes, which has three children's homes in London and is setting up a home in Edenderry, Co Offaly. Its patron is Cardinal Basil Hume and its sponsors include Mr Justice Costello and Prof Anthony Clare.