Teenage asylum-seekers who arrive in Ireland unaccompanied account for one out of every five children in care in Ireland.
According to draft figures from the Department of Health, 5,517 children were in care or being housed by health boards as of the end of 2001.
Of these, 1,007 were unaccompanied minors, the majority of whom were being accommodated by health authorities in the eastern region.
More than 80 per cent of the unaccompanied minors are aged between 14 and 18 and are being put up in hostel-type accommodation in the eastern region.
They are provided with a weekly allowance of 119 a week to cover food, clothing and educational expenses and are under very limited adult supervision.
The high numbers have led to concerns for the safety of the young asylum-seekers. The Irish Refugee Council has raised concerns that the quality of supervision is seriously deficient and is placing the children in an extremely vulnerable position.
Under refugee and childcare legislation, local health boards are required to provide accommodation, which the Irish Refugee Council believes to be wholly inadequate.
"They are largely unsupported and unsupervised," according to Ms Cabrini Gibbons of the Irish Refugee Council.
There are reception staff at the hostels, but except for visits from social workers, the young people are left to care for themselves during the evening.
"They are incredibly vulnerable to a lot of different forms of abuse," according to Ms Gibbons.
While health boards have appointed social workers to deal with the teenagers, there is one for every 42 separated asylum-seeker, compared with one in 10 for Irish children.
Other concerns raised in a report by the refugee council on unaccompanied minors in August included the nutritionally inadequate diet of some of the adolescents and the fact that some of the children are not accessing education mainly due to lack of guardianship.
"This lack of parental guidance also increases their vulnerability to possible abuse or sexual exploitation," according to the report.
Last week The Irish Times also reported that the education of 32 teenage asylum-seekers was at risk following a decision to move them from children's accommodation into adult lodgings some distance from their schools, after they turned 18.
The teenagers who arrived in Ireland as unaccompanied minors are primarily from Nigeria, Romania, Ghana and South Africa.