Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman has said a report from the health watchdog into the treatment of unaccompanied children who arrive in Ireland was “very concerning”.
The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) published a report on Wednesday into the Separated Children Seeking International Protection service, under the remit of the State’s child and family agency, Tusla.
The inspection focused on governance, children’s rights, the quality and safety of child protection and welfare services that unaccompanied children received, and found that it was not compliant across all 10 standards assessed.
It said that due to staffing challenges last year, there was “a crisis response” focusing on unaccompanied children’s basic care needs and accommodation, rather than on their wider protection and welfare needs.
“Our separated children’s services has seen a very significant increase in the number of children it’s been dealing with, (due to) a combination of the war in Ukraine and the increased levels of migration,” Mr O’Gorman told RTE Radio.
“So, prior to 2022 it would have been dealing with maybe 30-40 children per year, and right now it has 270 children.
“The significant majority in that cohort now are older young people, so in the 16-17 age category, so it has changed the demographic, the make-up of that group has changed.
“Nevertheless, the report from Hiqa is very concerning. Any report that Hiqa produces to me that suggests that children and young people are vulnerable is something I have my department take very seriously.”
The Hiqa report also noted appropriate follow-ups in cases where children went missing were not carried out.
For example, the report said that in one case where a child flagged as at risk of exploitation went missing, “there was no evidence of follow-up discussion with An Garda Siochana around the risk to the child of returning to exploitation”.
It also said there was limited evidence of learnings from incidents where children went missing from care.
Mr O’Gorman said that any child who goes missing is “a source of real concern”.
“Let’s be very clear about that, no child should be going missing. But the vast majority of children who do abscond from care arrangements are returned to those care arrangements.
“We have close working relationships with An Garda Siochana, we now have a Tusla chief social worker embedded in the Garda National Protective Services Unit.
“So we have that ongoing engagement with them so we can follow up on those cases.”
He said that he plans to engage with Tusla on how services can be strengthened for children in the State’s care.
