FOUR TEENAGE asylum seekers planning to sit the Leaving Certificate next June have failed in their bid to secure High Court injunctions against the HSE aimed at allowing them to return to schools they had previously attended in Dublin.
They had sought the temporary injunction pending a full hearing of their case in the High Court on a date yet to be decided.
The four girls, who arrived separately in Ireland from Africa in 2008 as unaccompanied minors, were initially placed in care and had attended Dublin schools.
However, after they turned 18, they were relocated to adult hostel accommodation in Galway, where they are attending schools.
The four, who cannot be named for legal reasons, sought injunctions, pending the full hearing of the action, requiring the HSE to put in place an appropriate aftercare plan, including the provision of finances, that would allow them to complete their Leaving Certificate examinations at the schools in Dublin they previously attended.
The HSE had opposed the application.
At the High Court yesterday, Mr Justice Barry White dismissed the students’ application for injunctions on grounds including that he was not satisfied at this stage that the cases of the four were likely to succeed when they came before the High Court.
He also refused an order preventing the HSE from withdrawing their €19 a week allowance and their medical card if they voluntarily left their accommodation in Galway.
The judge said it was undesirable for the courts to interfere with the day-to-day issues of a statutory body. He also had to be mindful of the efficient use of the scarce resources of the HSE.
He accepted that the lives of the four girls had been disrupted as a result of their move from Dublin and said his decision to refuse the injunctions was based on the law and was not a commentary on social or human rights policy.
Mr Justice White also said that the decision not to grant injunctions at this stage had no bearing on the outcome of the full hearing of the students’ action against the HSE which is due to be mentioned before the president of the High Court Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns in early October.
Mel Christle SC, for the girls, previously had said that after they had turned 18 earlier this year, they were moved to Galway after finishing fifth year at their schools in Dublin.
Mr Christle said the move went against the advice of staff in the schools in Dublin and Galway.
He said if the four were Irish citizens, they would never have been moved from one location to another in the middle of their Leaving Cert cycle.
One of the girls had been doing well in her studies in Dublin, she had earned Gaisce awards and had come to regard her teachers and friends in Dublin as “her family”. Mr Christle said the four students would be regarded as vulnerable.
Opposing the application, Felix McEnroy SC for the HSE said an injunction should not be granted. He said the HSE was being asked to provide “private choices” for the four with “public funds”.
There was no legal basis for this, he said, adding that their vulnerability was being “overstated”.
The HSE had clear procedures in place for the transition of “aged- out” minors from the care system.