Distressed girl taken into care at mother’s request

A 16-year-old girl has been taken into care by the Child and Family Agency just days after her mother went to the High Court seeking to have her daughter placed in care as a matter of urgency.

The mother said she was unable to deal with the level of her daughter’s “extreme distress and need” and had come to court because she had not received a positive answer to her requests, made from January 19, to have the agency urgently take the girl into voluntary or special care.

There was a concern about sexual abuse, Michael Lynn, counsel for the mother, told Mr Justice Seamus Noonan when seeking leave on Tuesday for an urgent hearing of the mother’s case against the Child and Family Agency.