{"id":271886,"date":"2026-01-30T12:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/271886\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T12:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:29:07","slug":"somali-teen-who-came-to-ireland-alone-wins-right-to-challenge-state-after-care-provision-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/271886\/","title":{"rendered":"Somali teen who came to Ireland alone wins right to challenge State after-care provision \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A teenage Somali refugee who came to Ireland alone at 16 years of age and who was then allegedly incorrectly considered by Tusla<\/a> to be an adult, has been granted High Court<\/a> permission to establish whether she is entitled to an aftercare support programme.<\/p>\n

At the High Court this week, barrister Michael Conlon SC, for the now-18-year-old, who is a State-recognised refugee, submitted to Mr Justice Miche\u00e1l P O\u2019Higgins that Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, had in 2024 wrongly placed the applicant in adult accommodation, which did not provide requisite State supports for a minor, and that the plaintiff, therefore, \u201cremains in difficulty in navigating basic supports and resources to date\u201d.<\/p>\n

The case was taken by lawyers for the Irish Refugee Council (IRC)<\/a> on behalf of the teenager against Tusla, the Chief International Protection Officer, the Minister for Justice, the International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas)<\/a>, Ireland and the Attorney General<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The IRC is seeking a court order requiring Tusla to reassess whether the teenager needs further life assistance and, if so, to provide an adult aftercare plan under the Child Care Act 1991.<\/p>\n

It is claimed the teenager was entitled to a presumption that she was a child when she came to Ireland in 2024 and that there was a failure regarding a lawful procedure to establish her age, which is a breach of the International Protection Act of 2015.<\/p>\n

It is submitted that the plaintiff arrived in Ireland in March 2024 and successfully claimed international protection later that month. It is also submitted that she was issued with a Temporary Residence Certificate until 2028 and was then placed in \u201cinappropriate adult accommodation\u201d, without access to child education and supports she was entitled to as a minor.<\/p>\n

It is submitted the applicant was assessed \u201cunlawfully\u201d by Tusla, whose social worker had \u201cconcerns\u201d about her age verification, opining that the girl was \u201cnot a minor\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is claimed Tusla\u2019s decision, therefore, made the applicant ineligible for future services provided under the Child Care Act, \u201cdespite the fact that the applicant had consistently claimed she was a minor and had provided her Somali birth certificate issued by the Mayor of Mogadishu in February 2023\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her original birth certificate was submitted to the International Protection Office<\/a> in February 2025 and was accepted with the date of birth recorded as September 2007.<\/p>\n

It was claimed that the applicant was not appointed a guardian or a social worker by Tusla, despite being a minor when she arrived in the State, and that this \u201cfailure\u201d has had serious consequences for the applicant, who is a commuting college student and is in employment to support her education.<\/p>\n

Mr Justice O\u2019Higgins granted permission to the teenager to seek State aftercare entitlements, and adjourned the matter to March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teenage Somali refugee who came to Ireland alone at 16 years of age and who was then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[86425,73,61,32652,34148,60,37637,43,53],"class_list":["post-271886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-attorney-general","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-international-protection-accommodation-services-ipas","tag-international-protection-office","tag-ireland","tag-irish-refugee-council","tag-news","tag-tusla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}