Children alone and seeking asylum

THE number of lone children arriving in Ireland seeking asylum has shot up in the past four years.

It has increased from 98 in 1999 to 2,717 by March of this year.

The rise is disclosed in an Irish Refugee Council (IRC) report to be published today, which also reveals the astounding statistic that almost one in 10 of the children are under five and a further 10% are between six and nine. The first major increase occurred in 2000 when 520 separated children seeking asylum were referred into care. The following year, it doubled to 1,085 before falling back to 861 in 2002.