Health watchdog Hiqa has told the Child and Family Agency it should conduct an audit to ensure there are no asylum-seeker children at risk of harm because of incomplete assessments, due to the moving of families between different direct provision accommodation centres.

The Justice Minister, Frances Fitzgerald, has demanded a report into claims some female asylum seekers here are selling themselves for sex.

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has described as “grossly misleading” a correlation between the lives endured by residents of the Magdalene laundries and the thousands of asylum seekers currently living in direct provision centres.