HSE 'concerned' by disappearance of child withdrawn from foster care

11/03/2010 - 15:36:16
The HSE admits that it is a matter of "great concern" that a Chinese teenager in their care has gone missing.

The 17-year-old had arrived in the country with no bags from Barcelona in January - with only a mobile phone and a single number on it.

One TD has already expressed fears that she may have been forced into the sex trade.

The young woman had initially been placed in the care of a foster family in Carrigaline, Co Cork, but she was taken from there after just 24 hours and placed in what the HSE describes as "supported lodgings".

That is where many teenagers aged between 16 and 18 end up - but its from where this particular teenager went missing.

Fine Gael TD Simon Coveney - who raised this matter in the Dáil - said the girl had been highly distressed when told she was leaving foster care, for what he now believes was unsupervised care.

The HSE says the best interests of the child are always of paramount importance - and that they have followed proper procedures, before and after the girl went missing.

But it is one case of many - 501 migrant children who went missing from HSE care since 2000, only 67 have been successfully traced.