Dr. Niall Muldoon:

The Senator is 100% right. They are young people who have travelled on their own through treacherous terrain and faced some of the most dangerous outlaws and bandits they could come across to land on our shores. We have done a good job in respect of children who are young enough to enter foster care. They are put into specially trained foster care immediately and looked after well. Where we let them down is when they move towards 18 years of age and we immediately move them into the direct provision system. They could be in foster care in Cork only to be moved to a direct provision centre in Kildare for no reason. They are put into a room shared with two or three other adults who live their lives in all sorts of way - the adults could be working, drinking or carousing - of which the young people have no experience whatsoever. We have been pushing the concept of continuing aftercare for those children while they wait for the international protection system to kick in and make a decision, because this is the one area where we are letting them down. We should change it. We are only talking about fewer than 50 people per year, and they do not reach 18 years of age at the same time either. We need to improve on this considerably.