MORE THAN 120 children separated from their parents and seeking asylum in Ireland have been housed in hostels with no care staff after 5pm, a report from the Office of the Ombudsman for Children has found.
Separated Children living in Ireland, released yesterday, found 124 under-18s were living in seven unregistered hostels in Dublin.
When the hostel managers finished work, the only adults on duty were security staff. The young people had no access to care staff from 5pm until 9am the next day.
The report examined the care given to separated asylum seekers aged under 18. It found the centres did not meet the standards stipulated in the Child Care Act, 1991, and other childcare legislation and were not subject to examination by the Health Information and Quality Authority.
“The inadequacy of the current system was highlighted recently when a young person informed this office that the bed sheets in her room were removed for 24 hours once a week in order for them to be washed. No replacement sheets were provided for the 24-hour period and young people were forced to lie either directly on the mattress or to lay out their own clothes as makeshift bed sheets,” the report said.
There was a stark difference between registered residential centres, where some separated children were housed, and the hostels.
“The registered residential centres are all houses, run by care staff, with recreation space outside,” the report said.
“In contrast, many of the unregistered hostel accommodation centres had around 30 children living in them. The hostel manager who is in the hostel during the day is not a qualified care worker.”
The report said qualified workers linking in with the hostels had significant caseloads, while in registered centres five qualified staff were present during the day and two were available at night.
Some 175 separated children were in the care of the State and 419 were found to have gone missing from State accommodation in the last 10 years, the report found.
Ombudsman for Children Emily Logan said the care provided in unregistered hostels was inferior to that provided to Irish children in residential care. “Separated children are entitled to the same treatment and rights as nationals or resident children,” she said.
“They should be treated as children first and foremost. All considerations of their immigration status should be secondary.”
She noted that since September the HSE had stopped placing separated children in hostels and there were moves to relocate children already in hostels to care and foster homes.
“However, there are still young people living in uninspected, private hostels and the asylum process remains what the young people have described as very stressful and not particularly child-friendly or indeed sensitive to their unique situation,” she said.
Chairman of the Irish Refugee Council, John Stanley, said all children in the care of the State deserved equal treatment.
“We have consistently recommended that separated children deserve to be treated as children – this means the provision of care which is appropriate to their needs,” he said.
In a statement last night, the HSE said it was working to phase out the use of hostel accommodation by December 2010 and two hostels had been closed.
A tendering process was conducted and two foster care agencies had been contracted to provide placements.
Phil Garland, the HSE’s assistant national director for children and families, said the organisation had been working on improving services for some time.
“Key developments have taken place in relation to the closing of hostels [and] the completion of tender processes for foster companies,” he said.
Some concerns raised by young people in hostels
- Bedding was removed for 24 hours to be washed without any replacements being given;
- Broken bed slats were often not replaced;
- Old bedding was not replaced;
- Some young people did not have an allocated social worker;
- Letters issued to some of the young people had been read;
- Staff in the hostels entered young people's rooms freely
- Little or no information about rights and entitlements was given
- Young people were separated from siblings once they turned 18;
- Food was poor, did not vary and was sometimes unavailable if a meal was missed;
- Washing machines were out of order for two months and bathroom facilities not maintained, including toilet paper not being in toilets for days on end.
