Minister insists no ethnic group should be targeted

Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald has insisted that “no particular nationality or ethnic group” should be singled out in child protection cases after gardaí temporarily removed two children from separate Roma families.

Speaking to reporters outside Leinster House after the events in Tallaght and Athlone this week, Ms Fitzgerald said that she was “extremely concerned for the families and children involved”.

The minister accepted the cases, which a Garda spokesperson told the Irish Examiner were “purely coincidental”, came against the “international backdrop” of an alleged child abduction case involving a white blonde child and a Roma family in Greece.