Reports from the Child Care Law Reporting Project highlight difficulties in finding suitable placements for children in care who need therapeutic support.
It is the first volume of reports to be published under a new agreement between the CCLRP and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.
Five of the 30 reports published today concern situations where no suitable placement was available for highly vulnerable young people.
The project says two of these cases were in the High Court, which deals with children requiring secure care, and three in the district court.
CCLRP director Dr Carol Coulter said: "It is very concerning that, almost six years after the project began, the issue of suitable placements for very disturbed children and young people continues to preoccupy the courts, with no solution in sight."
In the two High Court cases, the children concerned had been in specialist centres in the UK, but were due to return to Ireland as they were approaching 18, and no suitable placement could be found for them here.
Also prevalent in the reports are drug and alcohol abuse, learning disabilities and mental health issues among the parents in child care cases.
There are some positive stories among the cases reported, including two where the children were being reunited with their parents, who were resolving their problems, and one case where a boy turned his life around during three years in relative foster care and was preparing to enter into third-level education.
In one case where the mother had a learning disability, the High Court was asked to answer questions from the district court judge as to the extent of his jurisdiction to direct the Child and Family Agency to carry out an assessment of what supports the mother would require that would allow her to care for her child.
The High Court declined to answer the questions posed on the basis that there had been no finding of fact on which to base the legal guidance being sought.
Child sexual abuse continues to feature in a minority of cases, which are usually very prolonged in duration. One such case began in January 2016 and has further hearings scheduled for November 2018.
Another also began in 2016 and concluded three months ago, but no judgment has been delivered as yet.
