The judge in a provincial city granted a one-month extension to a teenage girl’s care order with her full assent. The girl, who was represented by a solicitor, attended the proceedings via video link.
The solicitor for the Child and Family Agency (CFA) told the court that the situation was unusual. The girl was a UK citizen with a UK passport, and was currently residing in the UK. However, she had previously resided in Ireland with an aunt. She would age out of care the following year.
The CFA’s solicitor told the court that the UK services should have taken over her case but that they had not engaged at all to date. The CFA had sent several letters to the relevant UK service to encourage it to do its statutory duty by the girl, but had received no response. The CFA was seeking a short extension to the girl’s care order for one month while it continued to try to engage with the UK services. He said that the girl had no difficulty with the extension application. The CFA’s solicitor believed that the court had jurisdiction to grant the extension requested as the girl was currently under a section 18 care order in this jurisdiction.
The girl’s guardian ad litem (GAL) also supported the application to extend the care order. He told the court that he had recommended a two-month extension to the care order in his report but that the care order would then expire when the court was not sitting. The CFA wanted the extension for just one month as having the care order in place was “leaving an escape route” for the UK services and it wanted to keep up the pressure on them. However, not to grant any extension to the girl’s care order would not be in the child’s best interests, in the GAL’s opinion.
The girl’s solicitor told the court that the girl’s preference was for a longer extension period to allow for the period during which the court would not be sitting. The judge acknowledged the logic of this.
The social worker told the court that she had been working with the girl from a distance. She said that the girl did not mind being subject to a care order. Having the care order in place allowed Tusla to support her with a weekly allowance of £99.
Some of the social work team had visited the office of the UK service in person during the previous few days. She told the court that they had not been successful in getting the service to engage with them. The judge remarked: “You visited [the UK service] and they shut the doors on you, literally.” The social worker said that a letter had been received by the CFA from the UK service yesterday, but the letter did not say that it would provide any services for the girl.
She said that the CFA was making the extension application that day because it needed more time to look for services for the girl and that she would also require aftercare services in due course.
She said that the CFA had found a loophole under a special guardianship order in UK that might allow the young girl to avail of some aftercare services in the UK and the team were looking into this.
Currently the social work team were making an aftercare plan for the young girl for when she aged out of care next year that would allow her continue to live in the UK. The social worker said that she would most likely need state services to assist with housing, employment and so on. The CFA was trying to get the UK service “on the hook” in order to have a seamless service for the young girl. The UK care leaver service should have been responsible for this, but it was hiding behind the Irish care order. She said that the UK service had no interest in children between ages 16 and 18 years. The young girl has a mother alive but she was essentially alone.
The judge said that he was happy to grant the extension to the girl’s care order. He was also happy to look at granting a longer care order at a future date. He confirmed with the CFA that the three recommendations in the GAL’s report would be progressed. These were:
the care order would be extended for a period of two months in best interests of child, though the GAL had no issue with changing the extension period to one month;
the girl would be allocated to an aftercare worker and an aftercare plan would be put in place for when she aged out of care; and
the funding and organising of a private ADHD/ASD assessment for the girl would be prioritised.
The CFA agreed with all of the GAL’s recommendations. The social worker said that a needs assessment would have to be completed first, after which an aftercare plan would be finalised and then an aftercare worker would be put in place. The social worker was unable to specify what services an aftercare plan for the young girl might contain as the plan would be based in Ireland and not the UK. She was not sure if it would allow an aftercare worker to travel to the UK to meet with the girl in person. However, she said that the aftercare would remain in place for the young girl up until she reached the age of 23 if she remained in education.
When questioned by the GAL’s solicitor, she accepted the need to prioritise the assignment of an aftercare worker sooner rather than later and said that the aftercare planning was being progressed. She said that the aftercare planning would be of particular benefit if the young girl decided to go on to further education and that Tusla would be very supportive of this.
The young girl’s solicitor told the court that her focus was to work with horses. She was starting horse riding lessons the following week and her engagement with a horse training programme was being progressed.
The solicitor said that the young girl had a weekly allowance of £91.00 (€99) and that she was having to pay for everything with this money. She was asking for an increase in her allowance of £10.
The CFA replied that the young girl had been spending some of her allowance on purchasing cannabis. However, the girl’s solicitor said that she had not smoked cannabis for the past week and a half and that she had decided not to go down that road. She added that the residential unit did not provide any food and that she was having to pay for food herself from her allowance.
The judge asked if there was anything that could be done to force the UK authority to do its duty by the young girl.
The CFA’s solicitor said that they had engaged a King’s Counsel, an Irish barrister and a solicitor to look at the possibility of obtaining an injunction against the UK authority and/or taking judicial review proceedings against the authority for not doing their statutory duty. However, while the CFA was looking at this, it was reluctant to go down that road as it was likely to be “throwing good money after bad”.
She said that the threat of legal proceedings had been made in a very detailed letter that had been sent to the UK authority, but that there had been no response to this threat.
The GAL told the court that her priority was the provision of an aftercare worker for the girl and the need to link in with UK services. She said that a referral had been made but the GAL did not have any timeline as to when the aftercare worker would be assigned. She acknowledged that the needs of a UK citizen living outside of the jurisdiction would not usually be prioritised but said that this young girl’s situation was exceptional.
Once the girl turned 18 she might not be able to access any aftercare worker or services in the UK which was very concerning. As a result, she wanted an aftercare worker from Tusla to be assigned to the girl for the entire duration of her aftercare. She added that there was a lot of aftercare work that could be done remotely. Finally she said, that the proposed ADHD/ASD assessment for the young girl was a very strong recommendation. In relation to this assessment, she said that the UK authority would only refer her to an adult neurology unit which would not assess her before she turned 18 years of age; hence the need for the private assessment to be progressed by the CFA as a matter of priority.
The judge spoke directly to the young girl who had been listening to all of the proceedings via video link. He told her that he would extend her care order for a month and that he would look at it again in one month’s time at which point he hoped there would be more clarification regarding her situation. He said that just for now all she needed to know was that the care order had been extended.
In the meantime, the judge asked the CFA to increase her allowance. In line with the GAL’s recommendations, the judge also directed the CFA to prioritise the assignment of an aftercare worker to the young girl and to progress obtaining the private ADHD/ASD assessment.