A young girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by a number of men when she absconded from a special emergency arrangement, where children are detained for their welfare and safety.
The case is one of 77 highlighted by the Child Law Project which conducts court reporting under tender from the Department of Children.
The report states that the teenager who was subject of an interim care order and housed by Tusla in a special emergency arrangement, had repeatedly gone missing from care and had recently been allegedly raped by several middle-aged men.
The mother's solicitor said that the teenager had gone missing in care approximately ten times since the previous court date and the mother was left to walk the streets looking for her.
It was believed that the teenager consorted with another girl she knew, and both were subjected to performing sexual favours for middle aged men in various locations around the city.
The girl would be collected, brought to a park, sexually assaulted and then returned to her placement.
Days before the court hearing the teenager had been subjected to an invasive sexual assault investigation and was scheduled for a specialist garda interview the day after court.
The judge said the matter had spiralled out of control and that the Child and Family Agency had to account for the girl’s safety, explain why the girl was able to escape and what standard of care was being provided to her as a vulnerable citizen.
The social worker was asked how a child could go missing from care and be exposed to harm while in Tusla’s care.
She said that a special emergency arrangement was an open-door facility prohibited from using any restrictive practices, such as locking doors or physical restraints, to prevent a child from leaving.
Staff did not have the required training, social worker says
A special emergency arrangement was not a regulated residential unit according to the social worker and the staff did not have the required training apart from in de-escalation, which could only be used when a child was at risk.
The only secure placements provided by Tusla are special care placements which were only considered when a child was at risk to themselves or at risk of harming others.
Special care could prevent a child from leaving the placement and provide therapeutic supports.
The social worker said that she thought it was too early to consider special care for the girl as she had only just been taken into care, however given the escalation of the girl’s behaviour, a special care referral should be progressed, particularly as it was hard to implement therapeutic supports for a child when they were in a crisis situation.
The judge described the evidence given as alarming; adding that allowing the child to return home would not be the correct thing to do, therefore a supervision order would not be appropriate.
She said that she would "very reluctantly" extend the Interim Care Order for 14 days. The judge required that Tusla provide a timeline on the referral to the special care committee.
The cases published by the Child Law Project highlight the shortage of social workers, such that some children in care have none allocated to them; and delays in assessing the needs of children with behavioural problems and disabilities and the lack of appropriate supports.
The Child Law Project has said that the cases it has reported on show "severe pressure" being experienced by Tusla in providing appropriate placements for vulnerable children, especially those with complex needs.
One report reveals how the Dublin District Court granted an interim care order for a non-national child who was suspected of having been trafficked to Ireland and involved in the sex trade.
The Child and Family Agency applied for the interim care order after a passer-by alerted gardaí when they found the child on the street, extremely distressed and very unwell.
The social worker said that the child had been living in Ireland for approximately one year but had no English.
The child told the social worker that she never knew her parents.
She was raised by her grandparents in her country of origin, but her grandfather died in 2021 and her grandmother in 2023 which resulted in the child becoming homeless.
A family said that they would take care of her and give her a good life, but they later sold her to a man who brought her to Ireland.
The child had been trafficked for sex and suffered physical and sexual abuse.
Despite saying that she had been homeless for the past year and sleeping rough, the gardai said the child did not look like she was sleeping on the streets for a year as she was tidy, though very unwell.
She had no contacts in Ireland and did not have the contact details for the man who had brought her to Ireland.
The child had said that she would go to restaurants and other businesses run by her compatriots and ask for help and that sometimes they would give her a place to sleep for the night.
The social worker said the child had arrived with just the clothes on her back and was particularly vulnerable. Even though she had been in Ireland for the past year she had no English at all.
The social worker said that the child had become very distressed when she disclosed sensitive information, however she was open about what had happened to her.
The social worker also said that there were no concerns relating to the child’s age except that she was a particularly vulnerable child who would age out the next year.
She was placed in a high need placement specifically for unaccompanied minors.
An English language school offering daily English language classes was identified by the guardian ad litem which was acknowledged as more useful to the child than classes held a couple of times a week..
The court granted the interim care order. The judge noted that the child had no guardian to care for her and that the English language, education and integration would be a challenge for her.
Drug addiction, mental health issues continued feature of care orders
Parental drug addiction, mental health issues and domestic violence continued to feature as reasons for Tusla/the Child and Family Agency seeking care orders.
A number of cases concerned teenage children whose behaviour put them and members of the public at risk, opening them to the danger of involvement in criminality.
Dublin District Court heard that a teenager had been missing for several days and had stayed in an apartment described as unsafe. It was being used by drug users.
At the hearing, Tusla’s solicitor said the young person had stabilised "to an extent".
He was no longer missing, which she described as "a low bar," as he had previously been missing for five days.
She said he now seemed to be "staying put" but that there remained serious concerns.
His aunt reported that the apartment had no electricity and was visited by numerous drug users.
Counsel for the guardian ad litem (GAL) told the court that when the young person had gone missing, he had been in "a crack den" during the week and the priority was that the special care application be made.
The case was twice adjourned for a week, when the court heard that no special care application had been made.
The guardian ad litem’s counsel told the court there had been an expectation that a special care application would be made, but conversations were ongoing between the social workers and other professionals about whether the teenager met the threshold.
She reminded the court that a decision to refer the case for special care had been made more than two weeks earlier and that a further delay of a week or two was "simply untenable" considering the young man’s vulnerability.
The lawyer told the court that special care, as the judge was aware, was tantamount to a finding that a child was at risk of death, and that it was therefore not something to be approached lightly.
The guardian ad litem’s lawyer argued that "not as many hurdles" needed to be jumped as Tusla appeared to suggest and she sought directions that the special care committee meet.
Tusla’s solicitor said special care was not "simply a tick-the-box" exercise.
He said there had been extensive consideration by the social work department of whether the threshold was met.
He accepted that he could not prevent counsel for the guardian ad litem from bringing a section 47 application if she decided to do so.
The judge granted liberty to enter an application.
Significant number taken into care had additional needs, project said
The Child Law Project noted in its reporting that a significant number of the children taken into care had additional needs.
The challenges posed for parents were illustrated in one case where five children of separated parents were on the autism spectrum.
Three of them were taken into care under interim care orders.
This was one of several cases where the children had additional needs and the parents, often parenting alone, could not cope.
Child Law Project Director Dr Carol Coulter said the fact that some children with a high level of additional needs were taken into care when parents cannot cope "underlines the need for a whole-of-government approach to dealing with disability, especially among children".
Several cases resulted in newborn babies being taken into care.
Frequently this was as a result of drug abuse by the mother, with the baby suffering from drug withdrawal at birth.
In one highly contested case, however, there was no parental drug abuse, but Tusla considered that the mother, who had come to Ireland from the UK and was autistic, suffered from mental health issues that put her baby at risk.
This case is continuing.
Several cases see positive outcomes, children thriving in foster care
A number of cases related to children who had suffered neglect or injury in their parents’ care, but who were thriving in foster care and overcoming early development delays.
In one case, a full care order until the age of 18 was granted by a District Court in a regional town where the child had suffered severe and traumatic injuries at three months old, while in the care of his parents a few years earlier.
The paediatrician on call in the hospital A&E when the baby was brought in by his parents said that he was clearly very unwell and presented as pale, lethargic and very floppy, with bruises on the left side of his head, ear and neck.
He said the baby was given an urgent blood transfusion and then underwent a full body skeletal X-ray from head to toe. He underwent special brain tests which showed a bleed on his brain.
The paediatrician said that he and the A&E team were immediately concerned about non- accidental injury.
He said that Tusla, the gardaí and the medical social worker were all contacted immediately under the protocol in place for such occasions.
A skeletal survey revealed several fractures, including a fractured skull bone on the left side, fractures on both arms at the wrist, fractured bones of the left and right legs, swelling on the knees and broken left and right ribs.
The paediatrician said it was clear that the injury to the child’s skull was from a trauma to the head which would have been a forceful impact.
He confirmed that the baby was underweight and malnourished and that some of the fractures were fresh, but others were old fractures which were healing.
The parents offered no further explanation as to how the child’s injuries had occurred and they repeatedly told the medical staff that they did not know what happened.
He said they did not react when they were told how sick he was, and they did not ask a single question about his condition or treatment.
The social worker said that both parents had been very consistent in saying that they did not know how the baby had suffered his injuries.
An interim care order had been obtained almost immediately once information had been gathered from the gardaí and the medical team.
The social worker confirmed that the child had been in the same foster care placement since he was three months old.
She said that he was getting on very well, he was a happy playful child, and the foster carers were happy to have the child in a long-term placement. The social worker said that the child was meeting all his developmental milestones and no longer required physiotherapy.
The judge said this was a case that had very frightening circumstances, and where such terrible physical injuries had happened to a child there was the potential for very serious psychological issues for him into the future. He granted the full care order.
The 77-report volume is the first publication in 13-months when the Child Law Project ceased reporting after its contract with the Department of Children expired in October 2024.
The Department issued a new tender for reporting in March 2025, which was again won by the Child Law Project.
It resumed reporting in May last year and runs a dedicated website that publishes reports from courts around Ireland making child protection orders.
The anonymity of the children and their families is preserved throughout.
