Many placements of children by the private Fresh Start Fostering Service have ended abruptly and in an unplanned manner according to a report by the Health Information and Quality Authority.
The social services watchdog says its inspectors were not assured last autumn that all adults with regular access to the homes of the company's foster carers had been vetted.
The fostering service is a for-profit company which has been providing respite, short-term and long-term fostering placements for the State's Child and Family Agency for four years.
An inspection was carried out last October when the service was placing 17 children, mostly under the age of 14, in 15 foster-care households across the Republic.
HIQA's inspection report says the children appeared happy, the company's staff knew their needs well and the foster carers who were inspected were caring in their interactions with the children.
Overall, it was found that Fresh Start Fostering Service was providing good quality care through its foster carers - when children were matched with carers who could provide for their needs.
These children were in good placements in which their welfare was promoted and their development progressed by the foster carers.
However, there was a high number of placements that were not successful for the children and carers and this was concerning.
The majority of fostering assessments were carried out in a timely way and good quality support was provided to some foster carers. However, the availability of support to all foster carers, and first time foster carers in particular, needed to improve.
HIQA found that practice in supervision and training of foster carers also required improvement.
The company was found to be in need of improvement regarding 14 of the 18 criteria inspected.
Last year, ten children's placements had ended abruptly in an unplanned manner and there had been no analysis of this.
According to the report, children had gone missing for short periods on four occasions and HIQA's inspectors were not assured that all adults with regular access to the foster homes had been vetted.
The watchdog says formal supervision of carers was sporadic, first-time carers did not receive sufficient support and foster carers were not adequately trained.
The report found that 14 out of the 17 children were placed outside their local areas, separated from their friends and families.
Records showed that, in one case, foster carers would have benefited from special training on the specific needs of a child before his/her placement but this was not provided. By the time it was offered the stability of the placement was in jeopardy.
It was found that two children were living with foster carers outside of their "approval status". The reports says this meant that the long-term placement of the children was not approved by the Child and Family Agency's foster-care committee and this was in breach of the statutory child care regulations.
Fresh Start Fostering Service's founder and Director of Fostering is John Martin, who managed child protection and family services for 15 years in Wexford and Waterford.
He moved from the South Eastern Health Board to the HSE from which he then moved into his new company in 2012.
