Ms Lara Hynes:

The question of whether we need to make specific provision for unaccompanied minors was given an enormous amount of consideration. In the end, we did not make specific provision because we wanted to protect the equity of care principle, whereby unaccompanied minors get exactly the same level of care and are taken into care under the same thresholds as Irish-resident children. Ireland is very much considered a leader in Europe in our care of unaccompanied minors because, in effect, we take most of them into care and provide the same level of service to them as we do to Irish-resident children. That was fundamentally the consideration that led to our not putting in a specific provision for unaccompanied minors.

Some of the challenges that exist currently in this regard are more appropriately dealt with at a policy and operational level. We engage regularly with our colleagues in Tusla on the specific issues that arise for unaccompanied minors. It is becoming a larger issue at the moment in terms of scale. I have outlined the fundamental reason we did not put in a specific provision. It is not that we were not looking to provide a very high level of service and standard of care to those children. In fact, it was the opposite.