A Judge warned yesterday that after three weeks of assessment of a 12-year-old disturbed boy, he did not want to hear there was not a secure place available for him.
Judge Michael Reilly was commenting at Limerick District Court during the third hearing of the case in which the boy is charged with damaging property of child-care centres in Limerick.
The judge was forced to remand him to Henry Street Garda station for two nights when no suitable detention centre was available. Last Friday he was remanded to St Michael's Centre in Dublin for the weekend, and the case came up for hearing again yesterday.
Ms Finola Freehill, solicitor for the Mid-Western Health Board, said St Michael's had agreed to carry out a three-week assessment of the boy and it would recommend the appropriate placement. The judge, remanding him to St Michael's until November 17th, said he could not help commenting that this should have been available to this young boy from the first day he was brought to court.
St Michael's should have been available to him and, had it not been for Mr Bernard Gloster, director of St Vincent's Childcare Centre in Limerick, the probation service and the press this facility would not have been available. Judge Reilly said that while he was not pre-empting the recommendations from St Michael's, he would not be very pleased if he was told that no secure place would be available for the boy. "I will not accept that," he said.
Mr Ted McCarthy, solicitor for the boy, asked what the situation after the three weeks in St Michael's would be if the problem of accommodation still arose.
The judge said the professionals in St Michael's were the people who would make up their minds as to what programme should be made out for this boy. He warned that if there were still difficulties after the three-week period "I will have things to say about that".