Protection of children paramount

The protection of young non-national children who arrive in this country unaccompanied is presenting a serious and growing problem for State agencies expected to look after them.

It has reached such proportions that the gardaí want greater controls in their places of accommodation, because already too many of them are disappearing.

The latest instance is that of a 15-year-old Moldovan girl who has been missing for the past five weeks. She disappeared from a health board hostel in Dublin, which illustrates the defects in the system which cause young people to end up in the garda’s missing person files.