State paying €4,500 a week for teenager's flat 'scandalous', says judge

A district court judge has stated that it is “scandalous” that the State is paying a private operator €4,500 a week to house a troubled teen with no services, writes Gordon Deegan.

At the family law court in Ennis, Judge Patrick Durcan said that the €250,000 annual spend on accommodating the 16-year-old at an apartment in a town in Co Louth is a multiple of what would cost sending a teen to Eton College in England.