A child who has asked to be detained in special care has drawn up a \u201ckill list\u201d of care staff, including diagrams on how they would carry out the killings, the High Court heard on Monday. <\/p>\n
The teenager, who has made multiple suicide attempts, is among six young people Judge John Jordan has ordered be taken into special care but who cannot access beds. He made his order in this case seven weeks ago, with orders in four others made before Easter and one on Monday. <\/p>\n
Children aged between 11 and 17 years can be detained in special care, the most secure form of care, by the High Court where their behaviours are a threat to their own lives or to others. <\/p>\n
However, just 15 of the State\u2019s 26 special care beds are operating due to serious challenges faced by Tusla in recruiting and retaining special care staff. Seven staff are needed for each bed. <\/p>\n
Paul Gunning, barrister for Tusla, said the teenager was \u201canother no beds case\u201d and was making \u201cvery worrying threats to harm\u201d the care team and their father. The young person had \u201csubmitted a notebook with a kill list, including diagrams on how\u201d they would go about carrying out the threats, he said. <\/p>\n
Donal \u00d3 Muircheartaigh, for the child\u2019s court-appointed advocate, said the young person\u2019s behaviour was \u201ctremendously, tremendously concerning\u201d and involved \u201congoing suicidal ideation, ongoing self-harm\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThings are escalating considerably. This is a child who needs to be in special care today,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The judge, describing the situation as \u201cludicrous\u201d, said the teenager wanted to be placed in special care because they were \u201cafraid of what might happen\u201d otherwise. <\/p>\n
\u201cNot alone does [the child] need to be in special care, but a special care order has been in existence since March 2nd,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a ludicrous situation once more. Responsibility for complying with an order rests with [Tusla].\u201d <\/p>\n
He said it appeared \u201cthe stark reality, the grim situation of life and possible death for these young people\u201d was not being heard by the agency.<\/p>\n
In another application, granted by the judge, Sarah McKechnie, barrister for Tusla, told the court an \u201cexceptionally vulnerable\u201d teenager, who had \u201cexperienced several challenges\u201d in early life, was involved in the sale of \u201cillicit substances\u201d and was being \u201cexploited\u201d. <\/p>\n
Plenary proceedings had been issued against Tusla alleging failure to comply with an order that a young teenager be detained in special care, the court heard. <\/p>\n
Brendan Hennessy, barrister for the child\u2019s mother, said an order made on March 16th had not been complied with. <\/p>\n
The child was repeatedly absconding from placement, was involved in vandalism and had recently been collected from a garda station at 2am by carers. In the past week, the court heard, the child was involved in an incident in which a deodorant aerosol was set alight. <\/p>\n
Maeve Cox, for the child\u2019s court-appointed advocate, said the child \u201cdesperately needs to be placed in special care as a matter of urgency\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A child who has asked to be detained in special care has drawn up a \u201ckill list\u201d of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6242,2386,46426,46427,72,46428,4894,46429,46430,46431,61,60,3404,46432,12546,42144],"class_list":{"0":"post-409887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-street","9":"tag-outdoors","10":"tag-building-exterior","11":"tag-built-structure","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-courthouse","14":"tag-day","15":"tag-dublin-republic-of-ireland","16":"tag-famous-place","17":"tag-four-courts","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-republic-of-ireland","21":"tag-tilt","22":"tag-tree","23":"tag-white"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409887","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=409887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}