The Minister of State for Health has condemned the Eastern Health Board for its handling of a couple's application to foster their grandchild.

"In my two years as a Minister of State this case bothers me more than any other that has come to my attention," Mr Frank Fahey said, adding that he would be "deeply concerned" if the board had given him incorrect information.

He said the case and the way the board handled it was of grave concern to him and he would bring about "drastic action" in the coming weeks.

The Minister said he had failed to get information he required from the board, despited repeated efforts. He said, however, that he had sought independent advice and was satisfied that there was a very serious case to be answered by the board. "In their reply to my department tonight they have sought to hide behind provisions of the 1991 Child Care Act."

He said that as far is it was within his power to have an examination carried out on the board's handling of the case he would do so as soon as possible.

The issue was raised on the adjournment of the Dail by Mr Dick Roche (FF, Wicklow). He said the board had behaved "absolutely disgracefully" and he had never been so sickened as by the board's handling of the child's welfare. He called on the Minister to get some outside body to oversee the manner in which the application was being sought.

He said the child's family had sought the board's help, because the child's parents recognised that they had a problem. However, not only were they not helped, they ended up losing the child they loved.

Documents posted to the board concerning the application were mysteriously "lost". A further application was lodged. They were bullied, he said into withdrawing their application but have since renewed it.

The child was taken into care on Christmas Eve 1996 in an "extraordinary manner" when the board used the Garda to enter the house by force to take the child. The grandparents wanted to foster the child but were informed that they were too old and in poor health.

Mr Roche said the grandmother worked in a nursing home and would make a fine foster mother. The grandfather was a supervisor in a community employment scheme dealing with sometimes very difficult young men. The grandfather had had a heart bypass but so had so many people who lived very full lives.