We’re still failing the vulnerable - Children in direct provision

WHEN those appalling, shaming reports about how vulnerable children were so mistreated in care homes were published, we took comfort in the suggestion that most people were unaware of what went on in these wretched institutions.

We may not have entirely believed that convenient fiction but it was the best we could do, it was a straw of decency we clutched at in a very dark moment.

However, we cannot use that excuse about the suspended lives of asylum seekers or the children born into the 15-year-old system of direct provision. We are all aware of the inhuman indignities underpinning a system that is one of enduring the black marks against our society.