Care workers complain hands are tied by law

CARE workers say they are powerless to prevent a repeat of the Tracey Fay tragedy because their hands are tied by the law.

They want greater freedom to decide how to protect troubled children and for the law to back them where they decide a child needs to be restrained for their own safety.

Under current regulations, children like Tracey – who have committed no crime – are accommodated in open residential units except in extreme circumstances where their detention in a locked, secure unit must be sanctioned by the courts.

“You’d be president of the United States of America quicker than you’d get a court order,” said Noel Howard, spokesman for the Irish Association of Social Care Workers (IASCW). “In the meantime you have a child who can walk out the door any time and there is little can be done to stop them. You can talk to them, try to reason with them, persuade them, but you can’t put a hand on them or put a key in the door to stop them leaving.”

Mr Howard said the situation left social care workers in an ethical and moral dilemma.

“The law states that we are in loco parentis so we should be able to act as any parent would if their child was walking out the door and into imminent danger, but, as it is now, any social care worker who would physically try to put a halt to a child leaving would have serious questions to answer.”

He said the weaknesses in the system were also evident in the case of 14-year-old Sligo girl, Melissa Mahon, whose repeated running away from care settings came to public attention when her killer, Ronald Dunbar, was jailed for her death last year.

“Staff caring for her knew she was spending time at that man’s house, but they couldn’t do anything about it except try to encourage her not to. We don’t want to be locking up every child in the country but there are a small number of children who may well need to be protected in that way.”

The IASCW is urging adoption of the Scandinavian model of care where open residential units have an adjacent secure area where children who repeatedly go absent or engage in risky behaviour outside the unit can be accommodated temporarily.