Nigerian boy in fourth foster home in 5 months

A FOUR-YEAR-OLD boy whose mother was deported has been placed in four different temporary foster homes in the past five months.

Fine Gael’s spokesman on children, Alan Shatter, accused the Government of child abuse in the case of a Nigerian boy who is in his fourth temporary foster care placement since his mother was removed from the State last September.

Mr Shatter demanded Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern to take action. The child’s mother, a failed asylum seeker, had evaded deportation since 2005.

She was arrested and detained in August and brought to the Dochas Centre women’s prison.

As this prison did not have facilities for her son, she was given the option of putting her son voluntarily into the care of the Health Service Executive.

She refused but her son was taken into care under section 12 of the Child Care Act 1991.

The woman and her son were the subject of deportation orders; arrangements were made to have them both repatriated to Nigeria.

An application was made by the HSE to have the interim care order lifted to allow the child to accompany his mother.

However, this application was refused by the district court and the child remained in the HSE’s care. As a result the woman was repatriated without her son.

Mr Shatter said from a child welfare perspective the situation was “indefensible”.

He said thousands of euro of taxpayers’ money have been spent by the HSE in maintaining a child in care.

“The continuing situation can only do profound damage to this young boy’s immediate and long-term welfare. The longer it goes on the greater the damage to the child’s capacity as an adult to make and maintain bonds or attachments. This situation can properly be described as child abuse or as inhuman and torturous treatment by the State and an exact contradiction of what Minister Dermot Ahern said on the steps of Government Buildings on the day of publication of the Murphy Report,” he said.

“This case classically and starkly illustrates yet another failure by state agencies to give priority to the welfare of a child.”

Mr Shatter called on the minister, in what he called “exceptional circumstances” to allow the boy’s mother return to this state to care for and raise her son here.

According to the Minister for Justice, representatives of the Garda National Immigration Bureau, GNIB, have made sustained efforts to communicate with the woman in order to facilitate the return of her son to her.

He said an application was submitted by the court appointed guardian of the boy requesting the mother’s deportation order be revoked to allow her to re-enter the state to care for him.