LAST month the Health Service Executive admitted “full responsibility” for the deaths of Tracey Fay and David Foley, two teenagers who died in the care of the state.

NO replacement beds have been provided for troubled teenagers requiring secure care following the closure of the state’s main special care unit last year.

Opposition TDs have today severely criticised Government measures on child protection.

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) has admitted full responsibility for the tragic deaths of two young people while in the care of the state.

The delay in publishing reports into the deaths of two vulnerable children in State care was tonight branded scandalous.

The Health Service Executive is admitting that it significantly failed in the provision of services to two young people who died while in the care of the State.

THE HSE was criticised yesterday for the late postponing of the publication of two reports into the deaths of two young people in care over what it called “unresolved legal issues”.

Details of the report into the death of 18-year-old Tracey Fay while in care were published last month.

THE HSE is expected to publish information regarding the deaths of two children who died in state care.

AS the first piece of jewellery given to a child, the baby bracelet becomes a family heirloom, a tangible keepsake for generations to come.

THE Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) is investigating 19 allegations made against foster carers in Dublin North West and North Central, including some of a sexual nature.

MORE child deaths may have to be investigated by the Health Service Executive (HSE) than those already confirmed.

OMBUDSMAN and information commissioner Emily O’Reilly is a highly respected public official. She has been prominent in public affairs for several decades. Her contributions to public discourse have been reasoned and pragmatic.

THE Government has established an independent group to investigate child deaths following the leaked publication of a report into the death of teenager Tracey Fay.

AS he has done so very often, Fr Peter McVerry yesterday put our latest round of hand-wringing about child protection services into a damming perspective.

THE report into the death of Tracey Fay raises the question of who was in charge of the tragic teenager’s care.

BARRY ANDREWS is an elected public representative. As Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, he is the public face of child services.

DESPITE the corrupting secrecy that does so much to block the advance of our social, political, economic, educational and legal development, we have been exposed to a litany of horrors over the last few years.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen said today that he hopes new HIQA guidelines will speed up the publication of reports into the deaths of children in state care.

A psychotherapist who was involved in the care of Tracey Fay is questioning the validity of the report into her time in care and her subsequent death.

THE circumstances in which five children died while in state care were never reviewed, the Government has admitted.

CARE workers say they are powerless to prevent a repeat of the Tracey Fay tragedy because their hands are tied by the law.

THE HSE will still be in charge of investigating itself in certain cases of child death under new proposals to be published next week.

FINE GAEL has accused Children’s Minister Barry Andrews of lacking the political muscle to protect the vulnerable and those in the care of the state.

THE state needed to accept it had failed children in its care, according to Children’s Minister Barry Andrews.

IF Tracey Fay’s tragic life and death prove anything, it is that self-regulation does not work and that the process is utterly undermined by suspicion and conflicts of interest, real or imagined.

TRACEY FAY, who died following a litany of failures by the state and its agencies, was one of around 20 children at risk at the time because of a lack of secure care.

CHILDREN’S Minister Barry Andrews said the long delay in preparing a report into the death of a teenager in state care eight years ago was indefensible.

IT shows the skewed loyalties of the Health Service Executive that their first response to the publication of a report on the awful life and death, eight years ago, of an 18-year-old woman in their care, was to question the fact that the tragedy was even made public.

An official inquiry has reportedly highlighted a litany of child-protection failures in the case of a Dublin teenager who died of a drugs overdose while in state care.