The separation of powers is now at the forefront of the clash between the High Court, three Ministers and two important institutions of the State: the Judiciary and the Executive. Mr Justice Peter Kelly has held that the Executive's request to alter the unprecedented Order directing the Ministers for Health and Children, Education and Justice - and an unidentified health board - to find a safe and secure place for an extremely disturbed girl is "unmeritorious" and "ill-judged". The Ministers will be in contempt of court if they fail to comply. The State had tried, unsuccessfully, to vary the Order to make "Ireland" the legal entity responsible for residual obligations to children under the Constitution. The complex issues raised in yesterday's High Court ruling will now be tested in the Supreme Court. The Government is collectively responsible to the Dail; a Minister is charged with administering the law; and every member of the Dail is responsible to the electorate. The Supreme Court will be asked to make a key judgment on the whole doctrine.
Notwithstanding the central question now raised, the unrelenting pressure which Mr Justice Kelly is putting on the Government to deliver childcare services is welcome. Ministers may argue that they are doing their best to provide residential care for troubled and troublesome children, that they cannot get staff and cannot do everything to Mr Justice Kelly's timetable. But, while no one blames the current Ministers for the state of affairs which now exists, governments of all hues have put the needs of such children very low on their list of priorities for decades. Had they acted on what people concerned with childcare have been telling them since the 1970s, the present Government would not have to endure the pressure it is getting from the High Court today.
Residential childcare staff have felt for a very long time that they are not listened to, not appreciated, and not given the means with which to help children. They are voting with their feet and moving into other work. Unless this changes, the provision of needed residential care will become an impossibility. The same may be said of social workers and foster parents, though residential childcare workers have undoubtedly been the most isolated in the system. It is inadequate and inappropriate that our health boards from time to time - often under pressure of publicity - end up putting a teenager into a house to be "babysat" by five, six or more staff on a rota. Could there be a more damning symbol of the failure of services to intervene early and effectively? The solution must lie in prevention. Prevention is not only a matter of saving expense to the State. It is also a matter of saving years of misery which will otherwise be endured by children and their families.
Some useful work is being done now, through local family resource centres for which the Minister of State, Mary Hanafin, and her predecessor, Frank Fahey, are entitled to take a share of the credit. Such centres are needed in every borough, liaising with every school, and with psychological, psychiatric and counselling services available and accessible. There is a long way to go before that is achieved, but not such a long way that it is beyond reach. What is needed is the will, at national level, to drive forward the provision of these services. Mr Justice Kelly may just succeed in awakening that will.