Special Report

Big Read: The children lost in a care system at ‘crisis point’

Separated children, including many migrants from Ukraine, are the ones suffering the most from the service’s shocking lack of resources

There has been an explosion in the numbers of children arriving here alone over the last year and a half and they make up the vast majority of those being subjected to ad hoc emergency accommodation and unsatisfactory supports

Judge Dermot Simms did not mince his words when he wrote to ministers in May expressing his “utmost concern” for the welfare of children in state care.

Emphasising the “likelihood” that the state would face legal action due to its “failure to comply adequately with its duty of care” to children, Simms highlighted in particular the lack of appropriate foster places and social workers, and the increasing proliferation of special emergency accommodation arrangements that were ...