The Child Care Law Reporting Project has raised concerns about the number of court cases involving applications for children to be taken into care, a growing number of which involve children who suffer from severe mental health issues.
The Child Care Law Reporting Project examines and reports on judicial child care proceedings. In 53 cases published today by the project, more than 10% featured domestic violence while another involved a minor missing from care.
Child Care Law Reporting Project Director Dr Carol Coulter said there are not sufficient resources for young people to receive intervention in a timely manner.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Dr Coulter said it is a terrible situation where children can become very distressed, but have not become so severely ill that they can be taken into a residential setting so they can get the proper psychiatric care that they need.
"There are waiting lists everywhere," Dr Coulter said.
She said that children usually come to the attention of Tusla through neglect, and domestic violence is rarely the sole reason.
However, Dr Coulter added that these situations can very often be accompanied by domestic violence and it is being cited in a growing number of cases.
She said there are a growing number of cases involving children who suffer from severe mental health issues.
She spoke of a primary school aged child who had been referred to the agency on 22 occasions, but no suitable residency setting could be found for him.
Eventually, she said, a private placement was found far away from the child's family.
Dr Coulter said a number of unaccompanied minors come to Ireland every year and they are normally very well looked after.
However, in the case of one child, who was found with drugs, he absconded, and there is a fear that the child was trafficked by criminal gangs and either "fell back into their hands" or has been trying to evade them.
"This shows the vulnerability of some of the children who might be trafficked into Ireland and the complexity of issues facing the Child and Family Agency when those kind of issues arise," she said.
Dr Coulter said every effort was made to locate the child but there "was no sign of him" and the sad reality is that some children who go missing will not be found.
