Report highlights chronic lack of foster care available for vulnerable children

The report notes that while the project has been in existence for 12 years, the situation has deteriorated for children in the care system in the past three years. It says: 

“The cohort of children who have been left without a suitable placement or therapeutic service to meet the children’s needs has grown. 

For the first time ever, we have seen cases of young children for whom no foster carer is available; very young children, as young as four years, being placed in residential care; and a ‘waiting list’ for admission to special care.

Although there are 26 beds for special care in Ireland, only 15 were functioning in July because of staffing difficulties.

The report also lists a “chronic issue” with availability of appropriate step-down facilities from special care, and the lack of allocated social workers for children in care. The report said that Tusla figures for July showed that 19% of children in care did not have an allocated social worker.

The report is the final one from the project, with government funding having expired in October. The Department of Children says that a new procurement process for a reporting scheme covering the child care courts will get underway this month, “with a view to a new project commencing in January 2025”.

The report raised concerns about the number of cases “where the child was considered by the professionals involved in his or her care to be at imminent risk of sexual exploitation (including from non-family members), exploitation for criminal purposes, or engaging in dangerous behaviour, such as joyriding.” The report added: “We have also seen some new concerns emerge. For example, in one case, a teenage boy was described as living as a recluse in a virtual gaming world.” 

Among other cases cited in the report were:

• A teenage boy who was on a waiting list for a special care bed was found to have had shop vouchers and expensive clothing, which raised the concern that he was already being exploited.
• An 11-year-old was placed in special care for 11 months, with concerns about him including fire-setting, substance abuse, dysregulation, possible exploitation and sexual abuse, sexualisation, and a negative peer group, engagement in illegal activity, and potential criminalisation with a “litany of PULSE entries”.  The report added: “Due to the level of behaviour of this child he spent eight of his initial 14 weeks in special care in single occupancy and due to his violent behaviour the staff were described as ‘the walking wounded’.” 
• A 12-year-old boy was admitted to special care because of issues including non-compliance with essential medication for a medical condition. He was deemed vulnerable to exploitation and had been exploited by the “criminal underworld drug trade”, according to the report. He had diagnoses of ADHD, ASD, and an attachment disorder.
• In 14 cases one or both parents was in detention or had recently left detention; in 21 cases the child’s parent had died including in violent circumstances; and in at least 14 cases the parent had themselves been in care during their own childhood.

Child Law Project chief executive Maria Corbett said: “This area needs to be given priority. The evidence here is that the system is under enormous strain. The crisis of availability of places is having a very serious knock-on.”

Unaccompanied minors

The report also said that legislation is “silent” on the appropriate provision for unaccompanied or separated minors coming in to Ireland.

In its report examining more than 340 cases of children in care in the last three years, 24 related to unaccompanied or separated minors who entered the State.

The project had access to information on just half of them, with the region of origin for seven of them being African countries. Three were from Afghanistan while two were from Ukraine.

Of the ten who gave reasons for fleeing their home country, four girls were fleeing forced marriages (including one to a member of an Islamic militant group), two were trafficked, and four were fleeing war.

Of the four who fled war, one fled the Taliban and another was being forced to join a militia.

The report said: “The Child Care Act 1991 Act does not contain any specific reference to unaccompanied or separated minors.

“The Act is thus silent on the appropriate provision under which such children should or may be admitted to or maintained in care. Neither is there any policy guidance on how the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) should respond to the needs of this cohort of children.”

The report outlined that the General Scheme and Heads of the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2023 “does not address this gap”.

It also noted that in at least nine cases, there were suspicions that a child was a victim of trafficking or exploitation.

Meanwhile, the report highlighted a case where an emergency care order was made for a baby who was just a couple of days old. Her parents left Ireland within a month of her birth, and have not returned since.

The report said: “The father was in a war-torn country and the mother’s whereabouts were unknown, following her release from prison in another European country.”

She was described in the report as having “a chronic and serious drug addiction”.

In another case of a baby born in Ireland, it was admitted to care at less than two weeks old.

Having been born to British parents, the infant had siblings in care in the UK and was the subject of a four-day court hearing where it was decided that a UK court was a better place to make informed decisions with regard to the short, medium, and long term care of the child in question.