Report finds many child protection cases feature ethnic minorities and disabled children
Just over one in four child protection cases involves families where at least one parent is an immigrant.
The final report from the Child Care Law Reporting Project has found that ethnic minorities and disabled children feature frequently in child protection cases.
The analysis, which covers nearly 1,200 cases over three years, also found a disproportionate number of parents suffered from mental health issues.
Director of the Child Care Law Reporting Project, Dr Carol Coulter, says often more than one factor affected those involved.
Dr Coulter said: "You usually find that parents suffer eitrher from a mental health problem, from addiction, or perhaps a cognitive disability.
"A large proportion of the parents, we were very surprised to find, came from an ethnic minority.
"They recently had come to Ireland, perhaps that also compounded their social isolation, which was another thing that we saw."
