A total of 33 children are missing from State care of whom 22 are separated children seeking international protection, Minister of State for Health Colm Burke has confirmed.
Nine of the children went missing last year while 24 disappeared this year, according to the latest figures from July 4th.
Mr Burke said in the Dáil that 21 of the 22 children seeking international protection have been missing for more than two weeks. He added that “the vast majority” of them are over 16.
The Minister was responding to Rural Independent TD Mattie McGrath who said last week they were told 40 children were missing “and there is no outcry”.
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Mr McGrath said there was no outcry either in June last year following a UCD school of social policy report “revealing that children taken into State care by Tusla are going missing and are being targeted and sexually exploited by co-ordinated gangs of predatory men”.
The Tipperary TD pointed to another case raised earlier this year about “a 14-year-old girl who went missing within an hour of being placed by Tusla in State care, only to be found a year later locked in a brothel”.
Mr McGrath said a major factor in the disappearance of vulnerable children from care is that Tusla places the children “in emergency accommodation and private residential settings that are not subject to inspections”.
He claimed Tusla’s failure to comply with a number of High Court orders to provide specialist residential care for at-risk children “is bringing the country’s judicial system into disrepute. Tusla lost its appeal in the Supreme Court in February to three court orders on the same week.”
He said it “beggars belief” that Tusla is “allowed to operate in breach of statutory obligations and flagrantly remain in contempt of High Court orders”.
He pointed to the final report this week from the Child Law Project on Tusla cases in family courts detailing 70 cases about children taken by Tusla into State care before the courts. “It is a horrific litany detailing children in care not assigned a social worker; children sexually abused in foster care; children trafficked across the country for sex by predatory males”.
He said “top judges have said they are in despair at the lack of placements by social workers”.
Mr Burke said that “most of the children and young people reported missing return to their placement after a brief period of time and remain in a safe and caring environment”.
He added that Tusla and An Garda Síochána work together through a joint working protocol on missing children.
“It is important to note that where a child is absent from their residential care placement for more than 15 minutes they may be reported as missing from care under the joint protocol.”
The Minister said “some children or young people who go missing from care communicate their intentions to travel on to other countries to join family members, and some indicate that it was never their intention to remain in Ireland and leave soon after they arrive in the country”.
Mr McGrath said the Minister’s response “grossly understates the underperformance of Tusla in meeting its statutory obligation to protect the country’s most vulnerable children in State care. Tusla’s dysfunction is hiding in plain sight.”
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