New guidelines for underage asylum seekers

All hostels in which unaccompanied minors seeking asylum reside in will now be subject to the national standards on residential units. This means that hostels accommodating these children will have to meet the same standards as required for all residential units housing children in State care.

Minutes of a meeting seen by Village through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request show that at the meeting on 7 December 2005 it was agreed that Standards for Children's Residential Centres will be applied to all accommodation centres for separated children seeking asylum. The standards will apply in full to centres accommodating separated children seeking asylum under age of 17. The decision was made between the Social Services Inspectorate (SSI), the Deaprtment of Health and Children and the Deaprtment of Justice. Under the standards hostels are required to have qualified staff on every shift and all staff will have an induction on the standards. All staff must be vetted by the Garda Central Vetting Unit. As well the hostels will be monitored by an authorised person.

A majority of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum under HSE care are placed in hostels. These hostels are currently not inspected by the (SSI), but all residential units which house all other children in care. One of the major problems at these hostels is a lack of supervision – and the majority of the unaccompanied minors who have gone missing did so from hostels. In an internal HSE report on the missing children from 2004 it said, "We are clearly not meeting our responsibilities to these children, as required by the Child Care Act 1991, in placing children in hostels staffed by security people, cooks, cleaners and "managers"…like all other children in the care of the State they require 24 hour care and supervision… until this quality of service is in place, children in out care will be at risk of disappearing."

Minster for Children Brian Lenihan has set up an interdepartmental working group on unaccompanied minors seeking asylum to look into the Michael Bruton report, a report commissioned by the HSE reviewing the management services offered to unaccompanied minors seeking asylum. According to the FOI documents, the Department of Health and Children received a draft of the report in September 2005, and the final version in December. Both the HSE and Department of Health have refused to release the report, as the HSE asked that the report remain "confidential" as it is still "part of a work in progress".

Emma Browne