A YOUNG GIRL with disabilities was held in a darkened room at a regional public hospital in 2021 for almost 60 days, it has been revealed.

In 2021, the teenage girl’s case had been “bubbling up” through the public health system for some time and it was determined, in the late spring of 2020, that she required residential treatment for her ailments, court documents show.

A High Court determined that the HSE allowed a situation to arise where the girl was placed in a darkened room off a busy emergency department without the required residential treatment on 25 August 2021 despite this knowledge.

The girl was “left to languish in that hospital room for close on 60 days”, documents from the judgment said. The High Court case took place while the girl was still being held in the room.

The documents have come to light as a part of the Child Law Project’s latest volume of court reports that highlight alleged miscarriages of care to children in care and in the courts system.

The project said the latest litany of 54 reports have highlighted challenges of interagency cooperation within the care system.

In the girl’s case, the court ruled that her “containment” – a phrase used after the High Court ruled the world ‘placement’ would’ve “falsely suggests her stay at the hospital to have been the outcome of some sort of programmatic arrangement” – was not at all suitable for her and had “a detrimental effect” upon her.

“Rather shockingly,” the judgment said, “she has not been outside in the fresh air for the entirety of her time in the hospital.”

In a letter Mr Justice Max Barrett wrote to the girl – identified as ‘Miss X’ during the hearings – he explained and translated the legalease in order to make sure she understood that her and her family had won the High Court case.

The letter said: “In the previous pages I have written a long judgment about your case. The judgment is full of legal language and you may find it a bit boring to read or, at points, difficult to follow.

“I am always concerned that applicants in child law proceedings – that’s you – should be told in simple language what I have decided in a judgment that affects them. 

“So that is why I have added this note to you. Everyone else in the case will get to read this note but really it is addressed just to you and written for your benefit.”

Judge Barrett added: “I am sorry that you are unwell and I hope that you will get better as soon as possible.

It will take time but please don’t give up.”

“Everything I’ve read about you tells me that you are an intelligent person with lots of potential for a happy future. So if you do what  your doctors tell you to do, my sense (for what it is worth) is that things can only get better for you,” he added.

Justice Barrett then told the girl that she and her family had won the case and that her family and doctor would discuss the next steps in regards to her care.

He added that he agreed, although not on every aspect of her case, that he viewed her containment in the hospital as unlawful.

Follow-up reports by the Child Law Projects detail that the girl had remained in the hospital a number of days after the judgment and Judge Barrett was notified again that the girl had yet to be moved.

Barrett said he thought it was “disturbing” that the child was still in hospital but noted that efforts were being made to identify an alternative appropriate placement. After a number of hearings, a plan was in place to correctly care for the girl in hospital.

The latest volume from the Child Law Project comprises of 54 reports (43 from the District Court and 11 from the High Court) which were attended by Child Law Project reporters over the second half of 2023.

The majority of District Court cases attended concern applications for care and supervision orders.

Echoing previous volumes, key themes in these cases include parental mental health, addiction, homelessness and domestic violence.

The absence from the child’s life of one or both parents is a striking feature in many reports.

In 11 of the 26 reports, the child’s father was either not known to Tusla, not engaging in or not mentioned during the proceedings we attended, and in four cases the child had been abandoned by their mother.

The level of vulnerability of these families is apparent in that in six cases, the charity said, the parent was in prison or had recently left detention and in two others the mother had been in care during her own childhood.