Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Now, almost 300 asylum seekers who claimed there were children were found to be adults over the past four years. The average time that this went uncorrected was 57 days. And some of these people would have presumably been living with children during that time. Here to tell me more is social affairs correspondent with the Irish Times, Kitty Holland.
and Safety Net Primary Care Medical Director, Dr Angie Scouse. And Angie, we'll come to you in a moment. But Kitty, first to you, this information has emerged yesterday at the Public Accounts Committee.
Chapter 2: What recent findings were revealed about asylum seekers claiming to be children?
Outline for us what was learned.
From TUSLA to the Public Accounts Committee. And TUSLA, this is an ongoing issue that the Public Accounts Committee is scrutinising with Tesla and Tesla say that there's been a big increase in the number of young people being referred to them in the last four or five years.
And about almost 300 of them who said they were children were subsequently found to be adults, you know, after they sort of interrogated the claims and looked into them. So, I mean, that's the main meat of what they're telling the Public Health Committee.
Chapter 3: How long did it take to correct the age misclassification of asylum seekers?
And the problem seems to be that there is no legal basis for TUSLA to check anyone's age when they come to them. Is that right?
Yeah, I mean, TUSLA's in this kind of legal sort of quandary, I suppose, or, you know, they're lacking a legislative basis to carry out age assessments properly.
So just to explain, so under the International Protection Act, which is a 2015 piece of legislation, if a person comes into a port of entry and says they're a child or the immigration official believes that they probably are a child and that they're unaccompanied, they must, under the legislation, refer them on to TUSLA.
And under that legislation, TUSLA must give them the benefit of the doubt that they are a child and they must accommodate them. So TUSLA has to take them, but they don't have a legislative basis on which to carry out age assessments. So their way around that is that they have a legislative basis
for assessing them for eligibility for their services, which is in effect a test on whether they're under 18 to be eligible for those services.
Now, we had a statement from TUSA this morning, and they say that from June of this year, so from next month, the International Protection Office will be responsible for and has committed to the undertaking of full age assessments under the new International Protection Act, which commences next month. So this will revert back to the International Protection Office to check.
Yeah, and I'm sure Tesla will be very relieved about that because, you know, that they say that this is an issue of significant risk for them. I'm sure there could potentially be cases coming their way, you know, down the line if people feel that they were a child who was...
in a child residential centre and an adult was placed in with them, albeit inadvertently, and that there are risks both to inadvertently placing an adult in with children, but also then, which I'm sure your contributor there from Safety Net will talk about, is there's a risk if you put a child inadvertently not believing they're a child and put them in with adults.
So there's risk all over this, you know, and TUSLA is, you know, in the middle of trying to manage that. And I'm sure they'll be very relieved that Department of Justice and Immigration are going to take this off their hands.
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Chapter 4: What challenges does TUSLA face in verifying the ages of asylum seekers?
And I suppose, you know, The issue is if they're in a residential centre where there aren't sufficient staff and who are properly trauma informed, trained and all that kind of thing to manage them and to look after them properly, that's where things can go wrong. And that would be, you know, the horrifying situations that that can arise and we know do arise.
Well, Dr. Andrews-Goose, do you agree with that? That really is where the problem lies. If you have staff looking after these children or adults in these types of situations who are not qualified, that's where the risk lies.
Absolutely. It doesn't matter how old somebody is. They need the care that they need. And these are young people who've come from horrific circumstances. A lot of them have had horrific journeys. They're not going to behave or feel like your average Irish 17-year-old. And people definitely need to be trained properly.
to mind them, to keep them safe, to keep the people around them safe and to help them return to health.
As time goes on, Angie, do you think that our systems are getting a better handle on looking after people who are coming into this country and assessing them, assessing their level of need?
Oh, definitely, definitely. All of the people I've met who do this kind of work care about the people that they're meeting. And we've gained huge experience over the last few years.
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Chapter 5: What legal issues prevent effective age assessments for asylum seekers?
The problem is that... And most of the people arriving have a high level of need and it's expensive to provide high quality care and high quality services to them. And so there's a constant struggle for funding to get enough staff with enough training to provide what's needed. So we know what's needed and we've got much better at recognising that for sure.
But those special care places that are unregulated, they are still a significant problem, Angie, aren't they?
They would be. Yeah. Well, to be honest, I don't have any direct experience of them. So but if there are placements like that that are unregulated and unsupervised, that will be a huge concern.
Those placements are still happening, aren't they, Kitty? We hear about them a lot and they sort of exist outside of the regulatory system.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they do still exist. I mean, Tulsa, in fairness, is reducing their reliance on them and they, you know, they I think there's about 70 young people in special emergency arrangements. The majority of them actually are coming from Irish households, not unaccompanied minors. And again, it goes back to funding. Tulsa is chronically underfunded.
They get half of what they ask for every year. They ask for the Department of Children doesn't get the sanction from the department of public expenditure to give the funding, you know, provide the funding that Tesla needs. So this all, and you know, it all goes back to deeper and the budgets, um,
So, yeah, if Tesla had the funding to recruit the staff, to pay them, to retain them, to recruit them and retain them, things would be a lot better and safer for children, both unaccompanied minors and from Irish households.
OK, well, Kitty, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much to Kitty Holland from The Irish Times and Dr Angie Scoose, who's Safety Net Primary Care Medical Director.
The Clare Byrne Show. With Aviva Insurance. Weekday mornings at 9. On Newstalk. Conversation that counts.
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