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’.