Boy taken into care as parents took drugs

A young boy was removed from his parents’ care after the family were found sleeping in a car and the parents were about to smoke heroin, according to the latest edition of the Child Care Law Reporting Project.

The report, which looks at 30 childcare cases, also details how a father offered to abuse his daughter on an internet webcam, and how a teenage boy who spent four years at an American facility by order of the Irish courts, returned here only to find there was no secure place for him.

The latest edition of the report, compiled by Dr Carol Coulter, also highlighted how three teenagers attempted self-harm while their cases were under review in the High Court, and how an Irish teenager could not return from a psychiatric placement in Britain because of a lack of suitable services in this country.

In one of the many serious cases to feature in the latest report, an interim care order was granted in the district court for the young child who had been found in a car with his parents in the middle of the night.

According to the report, the couple were homeless and intended to sleep in the car, which had no child seat. They had been about to smoke heroin, with another adult, when gardaí came across the car

During the emergency care order proceedings, gardaí said the temperatures had fallen to 2C on the night in question, adding: “There were clear signs of drug use in the vehicle. There was burnt tin foil from smoking heroin and ripped plastic bags of tobacco. The accused admitted to smoking heroin earlier in the day and said they were going to smoke it again when we stopped them.”

Amazingly, the parents of the boy said they did not know the identity of the other man who was seated in the rear of the car next to their son — a man who had “a bag full of needles” and “was there to supply them with heroin”.

The boy’s mother had spent some time in care and also had a child at a young age.

The child, who had “a large cut across his throat”, was placed in emergency foster care while the boy’s father thanked gardaí for invoking Section 12 of the Child Care Act. Later, when the boy’s foster mother asked him what had happened with the mark on his neck he said: “My daddy did it with a knife.”

In a separate case that was previously in the media and the subject of an earlier Child Law Project Report, a district court in a rural town made a full care order until the age of 18 for a young child whose father had been about to sexually abuse her online.

The court heard the child’s father may have groomed the child’s mother, beginning a relationship with her when she was 16, and may have already abused the child by the time he was caught in an undercover police operation.

The lack of services faced by some particularly vulnerable children is also a theme of the latest report.

One boy spent four years at an American facility by order of the High Court, yet on his return began taking heroin and crack cocaine and absconding from his care placement.

Another High Court case concerned a child who has spent three years in psychiatric facilities abroad but could not return home due to a lack of suitable services.

CCLRP director Dr Carol Coulter said: “The High Court cases we report here echo the concerns of the National Review Panel on Child Deaths on the lack of specialised mental health and other appropriate services for very vulnerable young people, who often languish for months while waiting for suitable, secure placements.”

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