Gardai were yesterday ordered to arrest a runaway 13year-old boy living rough in a Dublin city park and bring him before the High Court tomorrow. The order was made by Mr Justice Kelly after he heard the child's mother say she believed her son was drifting into his own underworld. What was most frightening was the realisation that he was becoming comfortable with this world.
The boy was said to have come under the influence of a 40-year-old man and had been apprehended by gardai in connection with an alleged criminal offence. Gardai went to the boy's parents early yesterday to tell them of the incident.
The judge said he wanted the arrest handled as sensitively as possible, with the boy's parents present if they wished. He would talk to the boy in court tomorrow in the hope that some good might come of it. The boy, who cannot be identified, is the son of a professional couple, one of three children and suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder.
Mr Justice Kelly was told by a senior social worker with the Northern Area Health Board it was almost impossible to find professionally qualified people to staff childcare units. Qualified psychiatric nurses were being used by the board, some of whom were health board employees who were making themselves available through an agency and working in their time off on a "nixer" basis.
Although these nurses were professionally qualified, few had childcare qualifications.
The judge ordered that after his arrest the boy be taken to a NAHB premises which the board promised would be made secure. The health board official told the court this solution was only an interim, unsatisfactory one and was not the optimum that could be done. Mr Justice Kelly told the boy's mother the possibility was remote of her son within the next six months being offered a place in a secure centre where he could receive proper tuition.
Nobody could imagine the experience which these parents had been through. They had taken all the steps they could to protect him. They watched as his behaviour became uncontrollable and were helpless to deal with it.
They did everything that could be expected of them. They went to their solicitor and received a reply from the health board acknowledging that the child should be in a secure therapeutic environment.
The judge said the boy had since been living rough and had fallen under the influence of a 40-year-old man. He asked why parents should have to come to court to get their entitlements? This was not a child neglected by his parents, but was one of a number of such children whose parents were left to seek redress by having to come to court.