Judges dealing with cases of potential child sex abuse and serious mental health issues have expressed their deep frustration with the lack of appropriate facilities for vulnerable children in need of the State’s care.

Tusla succeeded in securing access to DVDs of garda interviews in which children alleged they were sexually abused by their parents, despite claims by gardaí that releasing the material could compromise its criminal investigation.

A psychiatrist is to attend three units for children detained in secure care after a child’s letter to a judge prompted a High Court review.

An Irish teenager has been forced to remain in a psychiatric institution in Britain despite being ready for discharge, as there was no facility in Ireland to keep her.

The Government must prioritise the setting up of a dedicated Family Court — as promised in the programme for government — to avoid crowded lists, repeat adjournments, and chronic delays, a new report has urged.

Vulnerable children with specialised needs are being sent to special residential centres abroad because of a chronic shortage of secure, high-support places and services here.

The misery of children finding nothing under the tree on Christmas morning while their mother slept off a hangover upstairs is just one of the heart-rending cases to feature in the latest batch of reports from the Child Care Law Reporting Project (CCLRP).

A young boy was removed from his parents’ care after the family were found sleeping in a car and the parents were about to smoke heroin, according to the latest edition of the Child Care Law Reporting Project.

The case of a six-year-old boy in overseas residential care for the past three years, and who can not remember his siblings, is just one of a number of tragic cases highlighted by a project that looks at how and why children are taken into care.

Court proceedings in which children are taken into the care of the HSE are to be published for the first time on a new website.