Boy in Tusla care is up all night on his phone, court hears

Guardian ad litem asked the court: 'Is it right to bring a child into care if you can’t provide them with a suitable placement?'

The guardian ad litem told the Family Law Court: 'It is a very fundamental question that is there to be answered by Tusla at this point given that we are six or seven weeks into this.' Picture: iStock

A 14-year-old boy in Tusla care is up all night on his mobile phone until 6am and then sleeps until 4pm or 5pm each day in an unregulated special care arrangement, a court has heard.

At the Family Law Court, the boy’s court-appointed independent voice, the guardian ad litem, said that when he went to see the boy in recent days, the teenager refused to come out of his bedroom to see him and told him to ‘fuck off’.

Previously, the court heard that staff at the care unit were frightened after the teenager told them “he had made a sawn-off shotgun, albeit it was in no way real”.

Judge pleads with Tusla management to find proper placement

Judge Adrian Harris said he was pleading with management at Tusla to provide a proper placement for the boy.

“This child is in care and he is going missing every second day and, with the grace of God, has come back each time and I am concerned that, God forbid, we will find ourselves in a different situation.”

Last month, Tusla secured an emergency care order after the teen ‘completely destroyed’ his home in a row sparked over his mother refusing to return his mobile phone to him. 

The boy was going from hotel placement to hotel placement on a daily basis before Tusla secured the special care arraignment earlier this month.

Boy 'falls asleep at 6am or 7am'

On his recent visit to the accommodation, the boy’s guardian ad litem told the court that staff at the unit told him that the teenager “is up all night on his phone until 6am and falls asleep at 6am or 7am and doesn’t want to get up to someone like me knocking at the door at midday because it is the middle of the night for him”.

The guardian ad litem said that the boy gets up at 4pm or 5pm.

He agreed that the boy has “unrestricted, unstructured access to his phone 24 hours a day”.

He said that the boy has had no education for the last 12 months.

Restricting boy's access to the phone

Asked by Michael MacSweeney, solicitor for the child’s parents, about restricting access to the phone, the guardian ad litem agreed that, in an ideal world, it should be limited.

He said that as he has seen in residential units and special care arrangements, “there is less ability to do that — to go into his room and take the phone off him and what that might create there in terms of a scenario that might play out”.

“Of course I think he should eat fruit and vegetables but he won’t. Of course I think he should go and do activities but he won’t.”

The guardian ad litem asked: 

Is it right to bring a child into care if you can’t provide them with a suitable placement?

“It is a very fundamental question that is there to be answered by Tusla at this point given that we are six or seven weeks into this.”

He said: “If they can’t provide him with a placement should they be bringing him into care?

“Of course the opposite is what happens if they don’t — that isn’t a good option.

“It really feels that they are ‘snookered’ to use a phrase.”

Judge: Parents 'tried their best'

Judge Harris said that the child’s parents “are helpless in this situation and they tried their best and can’t provide the care he needs either”.

He extended the interim care order to June 26, and asked that a Tusla local manager and a manager at the Tusla national placement team attend court to provide an update on the situation.