Reports on children in care a ‘matter of deep concern’, says Taoiseach

Ireland has been struggling to keep up with an increasing number of children who need to be taken into care, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said, describing a new report on cases before the courts as a “matter of deep concern”.

It follows the publication of reports detailing cases involving children in care that have come before the Irish courts by the Child Law Project, in which judges criticised the State care provided to vulnerable children.

Speaking on the sidelines of a summit in Brussels, Mr Varadkar said the number of children needing to be taken into care had increased “substantially” due to migration and other factors and that the State was struggling to staff services.

“Certainly the report out today is a matter of deep concern. It isn’t new to the Government in the sense that we’ve had discussions in Cabinet in many meetings over recent months around the whole issue of children in care,” Mr Varadkar said.

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“The truth is the number of children who need to be taken into care by the State has increased considerably,” he continued.

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“Sometimes parents are dead, sometimes parents are in prison, increasingly because of migration parents don’t have a family network around them, and increasing numbers of unaccompanied children are arriving in Ireland from Ukraine and elsewhere.”

As a result, the number of children that the State has to take into care has increased “substantially in recent years”, he said.

“We have been struggling to match that with the skilled staff who have the skills and qualifications to look after children who need State care.”

“It is something we’re very aware of, deeply concerned about, and we are actively working on.”

The 67 reports published on Monday by the Child Law Project detailed cases before the Irish courts that concern children in care, or children who are subject to care applications by Tusla.

The reports included a letter by Dublin metropolitan District Court judge Dermot Simms, who has since retired, which said that 130 highly vulnerable children are in “unsuitable” and “unapproved” placements such as holiday centres, hotels and B&Bs because there is nowhere else to put them.

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In a strongly worded letter sent to Government ministries, he warned of “systemic failures” in the State bodies dealing with such children across Tusla, the Garda, the Department of Education, the Health Service Executive and the Prison Service.

“There is the risk, or indeed likelihood, that the State will face claims in the future arising out of its failure to comply adequately with its duty of care and statutory duty to many of these children,” he warned.

The cases highlighted by the reports included the experience of a teenage girl with a “troubled history” who was left “warehoused” in a hotel with no therapies after being abruptly evicted from her care placement without her belongings.