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.