SOME 27 children and young people in State care or known to the child protection services have died in the past 12 months.
The Health Service Executive said yesterday seven of the deaths were due to suicide, four were drug overdoses and two were homicides.
A further seven died of natural causes such as diseases, four died in road traffic incidents and three in other accidents.
The figures cover the first 12 months since the executive introduced a new system for recording the deaths of children in care on March 10th, 2010. Under this system the executive notifies the Health Information and Quality Authority of all deaths of children in care and children known to the child protection services. It also records the deaths of young adults between 18 and 21 years who were previously in State care or are in receipt of aftercare services.
Gordon Jeyes, HSE national director for children and family services, said the death of any child is shocking, but the figures for deaths of children in care or known to care services in the Republic were “not out of kilter” with the figures in Britain. The annual rate of death recorded by there was 160 per year; however, the Irish system investigates children who died of natural causes, which is broader than the categories of deaths recorded in Britain.
“I still think the criteria in Ireland are too wide and I don’t think it is the best use of resources to be investigating deaths of natural causes,” said Mr Jeyes, who was appointed in January following controversy over the HSE’s poor record in child protection issues. The HSE figures show just two of the 27 children who died in the past 12 months were in a State care setting such as foster care or a residential unit. The largest group of deaths occurred among children who were known to the child protection services but were not in State care when they died. Ten young adults, who had left State care, lost their lives.
The new system for recording child deaths was introduced following concern over the HSE’s child protection service and lack of transparency regarding child deaths.
A HSE report into the death of Tracey Fay was withheld for years before it was finally leaked by Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter in March 2010. Fay died in January 2002 at the age of 18 of a drug overdose, four years after being admitted to care.
Last year the HSE provoked controversy when it could not say definitively how many children in care had died in the previous decade. It provided various figures ranging from 21 to 37 and 188 last year. In December it revised upwards its figure for deaths to 199 between January 1st, 2000, and April 30th, 2010.
Mr Jeyes said someone should have looked at the small figures announced last year and realised they were mistakes. “I don’t think we are there yet in terms of having a transparent workable system for reviewing the very serious cases.”
Mr Jeyes said he wanted to restore credibility to the child protection system. Last year the Government established an independent review group to analyse all the case files relating to children and young people known to the child protection services, who had died. The group, which includes child law expert Geoffrey Shannon and Barnardos director of advocacy Norah Gibbons, is due to report in the next few months.