A father whose teenage son is involved with a violent drug-dealing gang has lost his appeal over a refusal by the Child and Family Agency, Tusla, to detain him in special care.
The boy’s social work team had earlier this year, in their third referral in 12 months seeking special care, assessed an “extremely significant risk” of harm to his life, safety, development and wellbeing.
This was for reasons including that serious criminals have involved him in their drug dealing and he had witnessed people being assaulted and killed, the team said.
Now aged 16, the boy is in the care of his mother, who is struggling with drug addiction, his relationship with his father has completely broken down and he lives with an elderly relative who cannot care for him, the Court of Appeal (CoA) heard.
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He was involved in a high-speed Garda pursuit travelling down the wrong side of the motorway, the vehicle in which he was travelling flipped and there was “a serious risk of injury or death”, his father said. His son is vulnerable due to his youth and has no insight into the risks involved in his membership of a violent drug-dealing gang, he added.
Both his father and social work team believe he needs special care intervention and detention and that any alternative residential or foster placement cannot successfully reduce the risk of harm to him. He is not attending school and the agency has been unable to get a residential place for him due to his behaviour, the court heard.
Tusla accepted the father’s description of his son’s personal circumstances and his involvement in criminality. He has a high number of charges before the courts, but is not co-operating with probation services and has refused to engage with various support services offered to him.
The father, in proceedings on behalf of his son, went to the High Court in an effort to overturn a March 2025 decision by a special care referral committee of Túsla that the boy did not meet the criteria for special care intervention as provided for under the Child Care Act.
The committee had reached a similar conclusion on two earlier referrals by the social work team in 2024 seeking special care.
His father had challenged the earlier refusal via judicial review and, in March 2025, by consent, it was quashed and remitted for a fresh consideration by the committee.
In May 2025, the committee again held special care was not appropriate. It said special care is a deprivation of liberty, other care options have not been exhausted and there was no therapeutic benefit for the boy in special care.
In a recently published judgment, the three-judge CoA dismissed the father’s appeal over the High Court’s upholding of that decision.
Giving the CoA judgment, Ms Justice Caroline Costello said the committee is an expert body required to exercise its own independent judgment and expertise in carrying out its functions.
It is inherent in its function that each referral, in the opinion of the individual social work team, meets the statutory threshold for special care for the particular child, but that the committee will not always agree, she said. “The mere fact that it takes a different view is not evidence of irrationality.”
The committee was entitled to take the view that the material presented by the social work team in support of their contention that only special care could adequately address his situation was “less than compelling”.
It was open to the committee in those circumstances to reach a contrary view. In doing so, it acted consistently with its earlier decisions and did not act irrationally, she held.
The committee was not persuaded that the only option was to have the boy detained in special care so the agency could “actually access” him and provide him with a residential placement and services he had refused to date, she said.
