HSE kept girls in hostels without qualified care staff

VULNERABLE teenage girls in State care who are deemed easy targets for prostitution have been housed in hostels with no qualified child care staff, according to internal Health Service Executive (HSE) documents.

The alarming revelation is contained in one of a series of inspection reports of private residential child care centres obtained by the Irish Examiner under Freedom of Information legislation.

The inspections, carried out by HSE project workers on behalf of the HSE during the period January 2009 to February 2010, also reveal that: