The High Court has recorded Health Service Executive reforms to special care and high support services after a shortage of places delayed the implementation of a detention order for a teenager identified as W.R.
In a judgment delivered on 18 July 2007, Mr Justice MacMenamin said the hearing took place with the parties’ consent. No mandatory orders against a State agency were sought, and the court did not decide a dispute between the executive and judicial branches.
The HSE began proceedings in December 2005 seeking W.R.’s detention and placement at Ballydowd Young People’s Centre. After absconding from a high support unit, he returned to his family home. The judgment records that his mother feared for her safety and that he had disengaged from care services. By late July 2006, the court described the home situation as critical and said his conduct posed serious risks to himself or others.
On 31 July 2006, the court ordered that W.R. be detained by An Garda Síochána and placed at Ballydowd. It stayed the order’s effect until 9 August because the centre had no space. The judgment says the HSE had considered whether he could be placed in a penal institution, although he had not been convicted of an offence.
The case also examined broader problems in care provision, including staffing difficulties, reduced capacity at Ballydowd and a lack of national management. The court noted that three special care units had opened, but Coovagh House had ceased operating in April 2004 because of staffing problems. Ballydowd, designed for 24 children, had capacity for 15 after some rooms were converted to offices.
The HSE outlined measures that included a national management structure, a central admissions committee, a register of occupied and vacant placements, annual reporting and a national strategy for special care and high support. The judgment recorded the HSE’s undertaking to identify need by December 2007 and to report each July on how services were meeting the needs of young people at risk. The court noted that aligning needs and resources remained a matter for the executive.
By the May 2007 hearing, W.R. had left Ballydowd and was living in high support accommodation, receiving one-to-one psychological therapy and continuing his education. He had begun overnight stays at home once a week and returned to the unit each time. The court said no further substantive application was necessary and that the short-term detention had addressed the crisis that arose in July and August 2006.
The judgment said that since a national admissions committee began operating in January 2007, no court had been unable to make an order solely because a unit lacked space. It also noted a substantial reduction in judicial review applications initiated by parties other than the HSE, while describing the long-term prognosis for W.R. as uncertain.