An investigation is continuing into the deaths of four of the 20 children who died in State care in the last nine years.Children's Minister Barry Andrews said that once the investigations were finished they would be given to a high-level review group set up to review the deaths.
"I understand from the Health Service Executive that there are 20 cases in all," Mr Andrews said.
"Of these, nine deaths were either accidental or related to complications arising from an existing medical condition or due to terminal illness. Of the 11 remaining, four investigations are still ongoing."
Mr Andrews, who was replying to a parliamentary question from Sinn Fein Deputy Caoimhghin O Caolain, said a review group had been set up to look into the deaths since 2000.
The review would examine "key messages into the reports of their deaths, identify areas where lessons can be learned and find out if there was a pattern involved in each of the deaths".
The group will make recommendations to the HSE and draw up a comprehensive report.
The probe comes as new figures from the HSE show that the number of children placed in care have risen by 3.1pc in the last year.
There are now 5,527 children in the care of the State and 378 are in residential homes with the remainder in foster care.
The numbers in care are the lowest in the west while the highest are in the south.
Residential facilities for youngsters in care are inspected by the Social Services Inspectorate and they interview staff and children while judging standards and making recommendations for improvement.
Weaknesses
The majority of reports show that weaknesses are continuing in some facilities in areas such as the vetting of staff and the proper assessment of references.
A report of an inspection carried out into a children's residential centre in the south in January was critical of the understaffing at the unit.
The report stated: "External managers told inspectors that the complement of staff available to all residential services in the area had fallen over the past 18 months and that there were restrictions on replacing them by the HSE corporate national policy on cost containment.
"As a consequence staff were moved between units in the area in an attempt to provide basic cover to all residential services," the report said.
Because of changes in staff there were problems faced in managing some of the challenging behaviour by the youngsters.
Over six months, several young people had to be restrained on numerous occasions.
There were also six unauthorised absences from the home by the young residents.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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