The Eastern Health Board has been warned by a High Court judge that it "just cannot shrug its shoulders" over a male child prostitute in need of care.
Ms Justice McGuinness told the board yesterday that the question of finding a secure educational facility for the boy was a matter it must take very seriously.
Mr Gerard Durcan SC, counsel for the 14-year-old boy, said the boy had been sent a number of times to a non-secure facility but had on each occasion absconded. "All parties are agreed that when he absconds, the child participates in drug-taking and child prostitution in the Phoenix Park."
Mr Durcan was seeking a court order directing the board and the Minister for Education and Science to find a secure place for the boy. He said he had been told there were no such vacancies in three secure institutions which would normally be used by the board.
Mr Aindrais O Caoimh SC, for the Minister, told Ms Justice McGuinness after a two-hour adjournment that one of the secure facilities available to the State had undertaken to provide a placement for the boy for four weeks.
"But I must make it clear that the position will be available only for those four weeks and on the undertaking of the Eastern Health Board that within that four-week period they would provide a suitable placement for the boy", Mr O'Caoimh said.
Mr Stephen McCann, for the board, said the matter would be considered at a meeting of the board tomorrow.
Ms Justice McGuinness ordered that the boy be taken into custody to the suggested secure facility and be kept there for not more than the four weeks suggested by Mr O Caoimh. She listed the matter for mention on Friday in anticipation of a report from the board about the boy's future placement.