A scheme to ensure disturbed children detained at the Ballydowd special care unit receive the psychiatric and psychological services they require is to established by the South Western Area Health Board, the High Court heard yesterday. A consultant psychiatrist hired to provide services to the children has been waiting nine months for his contract but is expected to secure it next week.
Mr Justice Kelly said the problems of providing such services for Ballydowd, which had gone on for months, appeared to have been addressed overnight. It was extraordinary it took the intervention of the court to ensure the special needs of children would be addressed, he said.
The development came yesterday after the judge had the previous day warned he would no longer make orders sending children to Ballydowd - in Lucan, Co Dublin - unless he had clear guarantees the children would secure any psychiatric or psychological services they required.
The issue of the services arose when the judge was dealing with the case of a disturbed 11-yearold boy, who suffers from a rare form of cancer, and who has been detained at Ballydowd since last Christmas.
The boy is doing well medically but the court heard he had not received psychiatric or psychological services despite requests by his mother, and the recommendations of experts and the staff at Ballydowd.
In light of yesterday's development, the judge said he would adjourn the boy's case to June 13th to allow the parties to consider detailed proposals for services. Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, for the health board, said the contract for the consultant psychiatrist had been signed by his client and returned to TCD.
The judge was also told yesterday that Oberstown Boys' Centre, a State-run detention centre, could not admit a boy convicted on criminal charges and sentenced to two years at the centre as its staff was totally overstretched in dealing with eight disturbed boys referred there by the High Court.
In the boy's case, the judge directed he be sent to St Michael's Assessment Centre, which was not secure and from where the boy had previously escaped. Mr Justice Kelly directed the boy should be placed in the next available bed in Oberstown.
The court heard 34 care staff at Oberstown had traditionally been sufficient for 30 boys but because of the major difficulties of the disturbed children sent to the centre by the High Court, this was no longer the case. Such boys needed one-to-one attention.
Mr Justice Kelly said the circumstances of this case were depressingly familiar and showed the breakdown in the criminal justice system.
He said Oberstown was not designed to be a therapeutic unit but could not take children on foot of detention orders because it had to take cases from the High Court.
This was a sad situation which looked likely to continue for years to come.
