Foreign children in care among missing

FOREIGN CHILDREN who had been in HSE care accounted for the “vast majority” of missing person cases over the past five years that were still open.

Assistant Garda Commissioner John O’Mahoney has revealed that while the Garda received just over 40,500 missing persons reports in the five-year period, only 212 of those were still unaccounted for.

He told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice and Defence that missing foreign national children were mostly African or Asian.

Of those people unaccounted for over the past five years, 140 are men and 72 are women. More than half, 114, of the people unaccounted for are minors and 163 are non-Irish.

He said the Garda was currently in the process of finalising the Child Rescue Ireland Alert system, which “will alert the public where a child has been abducted and there is a reasonable belief that there is an immediate and serious risk to the health or welfare of that child”. The system would involve the Garda working with the media to share details of a case quickly.

Tosh Lavery, chairman of the voluntary organisation Searching for the Missing, called for the greater use of the Civil Defence when conducting searches for missing people.

“Searching for people who are missing and are believed dead is very important but there also needs be more resources for the families of missing people presumed dead whose bodies are never found.”