{"id":357467,"date":"2026-03-21T08:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T08:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/357467\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T08:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T08:03:09","slug":"hse-will-have-blood-on-their-hands-if-highly-vulnerable-child-not-alive-and-safe-on-monday-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/357467\/","title":{"rendered":"HSE \u2018will have blood on their hands\u2019 if highly vulnerable child not alive and safe on Monday \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The HSE<\/a> \u201cwill have blood on their hands\u201d if a highly vulnerable child in State care and in need of urgent psychiatric treatment \u201cis not alive and safe on Monday\u201d, a Dublin District Court<\/a> judge has said. <\/p>\n

Judge John Campbell on Friday said the teenager, who has complex needs, ought to be \u201cseen swiftly\u201d by a psychiatric team and \u201cadmitted\u201d to hospital \u201cfor his own safety\u201d. <\/p>\n

The court heard the boy has been leaving his placement, taking drugs and putting himself and others at risk.<\/p>\n

Fiona McNulty, solicitor for Tusla<\/a>, told the court there had been a \u201cnoted deterioration\u201d in the child\u2019s presentation in recent days.<\/p>\n

The adolescent has been in care since birth and has no family in his life. A \u201cloving\u201d foster placement broke down in 2022. Since then he has been in 12 placements, including six unregistered, unregulated placements, known as a special emergency arrangement (SEAs).<\/p>\n

He has been described as \u201ccompletely lost, alone and frightened\u201d, in \u201cextreme distress\u201d, and has experienced regular episodes of self-harming and blanking out.<\/p>\n

His case, described as \u201cshocking\u201d by Judge Conor Fottrell in a recent written decision on the case, has been before the court more than 50 times since 2022. <\/p>\n

Seona N\u00ed Mhurchu, solicitor for the boy\u2019s court-appointed advocate, said on Friday that since last week he has been leaving his SEA of his own volition to go and take drugs. <\/p>\n

She said he then \u201cturns up at his former foster carer\u2019s where he has to be brought back with the assistance of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na to his SEA, where he causes property damage\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Judge criticises vulnerable boy\u2019s relatives for \u2018harbouring\u2019 him while missing from careOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is putting himself and others at huge risk,\u201d she said. \u201cHe is presenting with delusions and he is presenting very acutely unwell. It is a toxic combination, taking illegal drugs on top of that. [Tusla] are trying their best to find a solution but it seems the HSE haven\u2019t offered anything in counter.\u201d<\/p>\n

McNulty said that despite a \u201chigh-level meeting\u201d on Friday morning between Tusla and the HSE, there was \u201cno solution forthcoming from the HSE\u201d. She said Tusla had no remit to provide mental health<\/a> care.<\/p>\n

Although the boy has an \u201curgent appointment\u201d with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services<\/a> (Camhs) on Monday, he is unlikely to attend as his presentation has become so chaotic <\/p>\n

The only solution on offer was that he be brought to an emergency department (ED), the court heard, but he refused to go anywhere with SEA or Tusla staff. <\/p>\n

The HSE was not represented in court on Friday. <\/p>\n

Campbell said the boy could \u201cnot\u201d be brought to an ED to wait 12 hours. \u201cHe\u2019d be gone.\u201d <\/p>\n

N\u00ed Mhurchu was \u201cvery worried\u201d about how he would be kept safe \u201cover the weekend\u201d when social workers were off duty. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe HSE need to provide him with an immediate psychiatric assessment and he needs to be safeguarded.\u201d <\/p>\n

The judge asked: \u201cWhat is going to happen to him over the weekend? Will he be alive on Monday morning?\u201d <\/p>\n

All he could do, he said, was list the case for mention on Monday \u201cfor an update to ensure the child is still alive\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt best he is being warehoused. The HSE will have blood on their hands if this child is not alive and safe on Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there was not a safe solution by Monday, the judge said he wanted to hear \u201cdirectly\u201d from acting HSE chief executive Damian McCallion and Tusla chief executive Kate Duggan on Tuesday \u201cto explain how they have passed the parcel between themselves\u201d on the boy\u2019s need to be in a safe medical setting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The HSE \u201cwill have blood on their hands\u201d if a highly vulnerable child in State care and in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1420,8411,2120,61,60,410,43,53],"class_list":["post-357467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs","tag-dublin-district-court","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-news","tag-tusla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357467","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=357467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}