Gardaí in Ronanstown, Dublin, believe three Moldovan teenagers who have been missing since October 12th may have travelled to Britain.
A Garda spokesman said investigators were now working with Europol in their attempts to trace the three who arrived in the State as unaccompanied minors.
Octavian Popa (15), also known as Serghei Tudorache, Ion Schian (13), also known as Ion Ernu, and Vasile Cichistu (15) were last seen at their care residence in west Dublin two weeks ago. It is believed they left as a group.
They were in the care of the Eastern Area Health Board, which cares for all such minors who come alone into the State. A Garda spokesman said: "It looks now like they have probably gone on to England or the continent."
Ronanstown gardaí are also seeking a South African teenager, Sive Yanta (16), who has been missing from her care placement since October 1st. A spokesman said she had spoken to people about a friend or friends in Limerick.
Sive is described as 5 ft 5 in, with short black curly hair. She arrived in the country recently and when last seen was wearing red silky tracksuit bottoms, a black T- shirt and red and white runners.
Also missing from Ronanstown is Russian teenager Erna Isayeva, who was last seen in her care residence in August. She is described as 5 ft 4 in, with shoulder-length brown hair with red highlights and brown eyes.
A spokesman said the Eastern Area Health Board was working closely with gardaí to trace the missing children. He said there were currently 220 unaccompanied minors in its care.
"They are accommodated in registered residential care centres, hostels and in some cases with foster families," he said.
The author of a major report on unaccompanied minors, however, is highly critical of the standards of care afforded them once they enter the State.
Dr Angela Veale of the department of psychology in University College Cork said monitoring and protecting these children was so lax that it was not surprising that they went missing.
In her study, Separated Children Seeking Asylum in Ireland - which she co-authored last year with Ms Cabrini Gibbons and Ms Laila Palaudaries of the Irish Refugee Council - she said health board resources were over-stretched. While in 1999 there were 32 documented cases of unaccompanied minors in the State, by March last year 2,717 had entered. About 40 per cent were "reunited" with family and 60 per cent went into care.
Dr Veale described concerns, held by many working with these children in care, about their well-being. They are mainly accommodated in hostel accommodation and are left unsupervised and unsupported. "One respondent said kids talked about their home situation, not having study facilities, no one to help them with their homework, no one to motivate them to go to school, the whole way they live."
Although there are sign-in and sign-out procedures, these teenagers are free to come and go as they please.
It was ironic, said Dr Veale, that as children, asylum-seekers were in receipt of full social welfare payments, accommodated in hostels and expected to cook and fend for themselves while adult asylum-seekers were accommodated in direct provision centres and "treated like children".
Given that most adolescents who arrived here alone were traumatised, lonely and isolated, they were "vulnerable to abuse or sexual exploitation", she said.
She would not be drawn on the five current cases missing from their care placements, but she said it was possible they had been enticed into a dangerous or exploitative situation. She also raised concerns "that insufficient monitoring and protection mechanisms are in place to deter or identify child-trafficking".
About 95 per cent of those children who arrived alone and sought asylum "were not identified by immigration officials at a port of entry" but presented themselves once already in the jurisdiction. Many more could be slipping through and "disappearing".
At the time of researching, she added, there were 160 unaccompanied minors who had applied for asylum but had not turned up for their first interview. Once deemed to have withdrawn from the process, "for many their whereabouts are unknown". She also expressed concern at the lack of follow-up for unaccompanied minors who were "claimed" by family members. There was an issue about verifying whether such family members actually were related to the youngsters.
