Children living in State care centres should be housed in accommodation with security safeguards such as video-monitoring of entrances and exits, while a national database of all children living here should also be compiled, according to the children's charity Barnardos.
Responding to reports that 316 foreign national children had disappeared from State care centres in the past five years, the charity said that a series of "action points"could help to combat the risks to these children. But it also warned that the State was currently failing in its duty of care for the children who arrived in Ireland as unaccompanied minors.
Among the measures which Barnardos believes should be introduced are:
The introduction of adequate standards of care, according to national acceptable limits of protection, so that children are under the 24-hour care and supervision of suitably-trained staff.
Care centres should have video-monitoring of their entrances and exits and they should be subject to Social Service Inspectorate scrutiny.
A State-appointed guardian should be assigned "as a norm" to represent the interests of individual children.
Norah Gibbons, director of advocacy with Barnardos, said that it was "extremely alarmed" by the reported disappearance of the children from State care centres.
"Children travelling to a foreign country without the protection of their parents are especially vulnerable to those who would seek to exploit them," she said.
"We know from international research of the links between children who disappear and child-trafficking. These children deserve the same consideration of care as their Irish counterparts.
"The care centres where they are staying should have full security safeguards in operation . . . so that if a child disappears there is at least a visual trail of their last known movements and any visitors they may have received."
Last year, health authorities introduced changes to the ways unaccompanied migrant children were cared for in the State following the disappearance of 68 minors from care during 2004.