Dublin social workers, unable to find accommodation for homeless children, have been sending them to garda stations for a bed for the night, The Irish Times understands. The social workers are believed to see this as the only chance a child may have of getting somewhere to sleep. The Eastern Health Board last night said it plans to provide 10 extra emergency places for children in a special unit.
Children seeking accommodation at night must go to Garda stations to contact the EHB's night social workers. But the social workers may have only one emergency bed available on some nights and many children have to be turned away unless they are allowed to sleep in a Garda station.
The night social workers are supposed to refer children to the daytime social workers for further attention the next day. However, the daytime social workers in their own localities sometimes have nowhere to accommodate children at night. They send them back to the Garda station in the hope that they will be lucky enough to get an emergency bed.
Social workers, it is understood, believe that even 10 extra emergency beds would make a big difference at night, and will welcome yesterday's health board announcement.
Internal EHB figures published in yesterday's Irish Times showed that in the first half of this year, the night social workers were asked to find emergency beds 1,599 times, but that beds were available for just over a third of these.
The figures also showed that of those who are accommodated some are sent to hospital.
The EHB said part of its problem is that some young people are excluded from all accommodation because of drug use or violent, aggressive behaviour. Others refuse the accommodation offered to them.
Mr Michael Bruton, chief executive of Focus Ireland, described the figures as "a devastating illustration of the failure of the statutory services to deal with this problem". Focus was founded by Sister Stanislaus Kennedy to work on policy issues concerning homelessness.
"We are aware of the growing urgency of this situation and we have been calling on politicians to deal with it for the past number of years," Mr Bruton said.
"A maximum of eight beds are available on any given night and it is our experience in Focus Ireland that up to 17 children per night are presenting with emergency accommodation needs."
He called for four short-term measures which, he said, should be implemented immediately:
A 24-hour service for children in the EHB region;
A trebling of the number of emergency beds;
A settlement service for young people who have experienced homelessness;
More daytime facilities for children and young people out of home.
"In the longer term, Focus Ireland is urging the Department of Health and Children to work towards the prevention of homelessness and to work towards dealing with the long-term needs of children who become homeless."