STATE INSPECTIONS of hostels where unaccompanied migrant children are placed have yet to commence, even though legislation was passed two years ago.

Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews confirmed in the Dáil that another 22 children went missing last year, bringing to more than 400 the number of immigrant children who remain unaccounted for.

Provision of services for such children began in 2000 when large numbers of asylum seekers began to arrive in Ireland, but all such facilities are operated by non-statutory agencies and have never been formally inspected.

Mr Andrews said that “when the relevant sections of the Health Act 2007 are commenced” the remit of health inspectorate Hiqa will include such non-statutory services. He acknowledged that “no inspections per se are carried out in respect of hostels. However, the HSE is constantly in receipt of reports from project workers and insists on the highest standards of accommodation being provided in such hostels.”

He added that from next month, the HSE will “move towards the phasing out of such hostel-style accommodation and will insist that younger children are cared for either in foster care or in residential children’s homes”.

But Labour health spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan said the issue, particularly in relation to young children, was not so much about physical inspections “as much as to the care system and whether such children are watched and cared for on a 24-hour basis as one would expect”.

The issue was raised by Fine Gael whose immigration spokesman Denis Naughten called for the publication of reports by non-governmental agencies. Mr Naughten, who has campaigned on the issue, said the reports showed that almost all of the seven hostels providing accommodation had failed inspection.

He said during health question time that a person might think from the Minister’s answer that “something is being done. If that is the case, how could a further 16 children have gone missing during the 11 months of 2008 for which information is available?”

Mr Andrews said 22 children went missing last year. There had been a dramatic fall in the number of missing children, from 66 in 2005 to 22 by the end of 2008. “While I acknowledged that the number of children who sought asylum also fell by half, the number who went missing came down more dramatically.” He said that two project workers were located in hostels and “provide the highest standard of care for children”. He said that many of the children “who go missing are simply reuniting with families that are already here or else are going to other European countries”.

Mr Naughten said, however, that the HSE had said that many of the children “have been rescued from desperate situations”, some of them “from brothels, in which they have been engaged in the sex industry”. He said the Minister had admitted that no inspection of facilities had taken place since 2000. “How can the Minister assert in this House that such children are being provided with the highest standards of care when no controls are in place?”

But the Minister said: “One must be balanced about this. Obviously one child going missing is a challenge.”

“It’s a scandal not a challenge,” said Mr Naughten.

Mr Andrews said children had been rescued from abusive situations “be they sexual or pertaining to employment”. That was the reason for the Human Trafficking Act, “which prioritises child trafficking”.