HSE care of children ‘unacceptable’

CHILDREN in a care home run by the Health Service Executive (HSE) — including one child whose home it has been for the past 10 years — are being housed in unacceptable conditions, according to the health watchdog.

The HSE was warned two years ago by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) that it needed to upgrade the rented premises, a semi-detached house in a housing estate in a Co Meath coastal town. However, the HSE failed to act on the 2008 recommendation and has now told HIQA there are no plans to invest in it, because the proposal is to amalgamate it with another home. However, the HSE could not say when this might happen.

HIQA said young people received “an important message from the environment in which they live about how they are valued” and that the HSE needed to give “urgent attention to the physical condition of the centre”.