High Court decides against pupils who wished to complete studies in Dublin

The High Court has made a ruling against four Leaving Cert students who have taken a case against the HSE over their removal from Dublin schools to Galway.

The four girls, who arrived in 2008 as asylum seekers from Africa, are due to sit their exams next June.

Their lawyers claim the move from Dublin to Galway is detrimental to the girls' studies, against the advice of school staff and would not have happened if they were Irish citizens.

They sought a High Court injunction requiring the HSE to put in place a financial scheme that would allow the teenagers return to their former schools to complete the Leaving Cert cycle.

Felix McEnroy for the HSE opposed the application arguing the girls were now adults and no longer in care and that what was being sought for them were private choices based on public funds.

Refusing the injunction, Mr Justice Barry White said there was not a sufficiently high degree of certainty they would win their case when it goes to a full hearing probably later this year.

He said his function was to apply the law, and not to impose social and humanitarian policy.