HSE confirms deaths of 37 children in care

The Health Service Executive has said 37 children died in State care in the last 10 years, from January 2000 to the end of April this year.

In a statement this evening, the executive said 18 of the children died of "unnatural" causes, while 19 died because of illness or other natural causes.

The HSE said 19 children died of natural causes or illness such as a brain tumour, heart conditions, or leukaemia.

Eighteen children died of unnatural causes; five by suicide, five in drug-related incidents, two in unlawful killings, three in road crashes and three in accidents.

Twenty of the children were teenagers and 17 were younger.

Earlier this week, HSE Chief Executive Professor Brendan Drumm said that 23 children had died in State care in the last decade.

Senior HSE manager Bernard Gloucester said this figure, which was issued on foot of a request for information made in 2009, was based on different criteria to those applied today.

It is understood the HSE now intends to count how many children died who had some child-protection or social-work-services contact, and the number of young adults who had been in State care previously.

These figures should be available by the end of next week.