The building housing a health board-run children's residential centre in Co Cork has been found by inspectors to be totally unsuitable for young children.
The premises is over 100 years old. It is "large, institutional in appearance, and unsuitable as a modern childcare facility", the inspectors report, which was released yesterday, said.
"The Southern Health Board should discontinue the use of the current premises as a children's residential centre," it said.
A team from the Irish Social Services Inspectorate, who visited Treeview Children's Residential Centre in March, also found that care plans drawn up for the children were "of a poor standard" and that required checks were not carried out on all staff before they took up duty.
"The Department of Health and Children require that health boards obtain Garda clearance and three references prior to the employment of people in children's residential centres.
From the information provided to inspectors it would appear that in only two cases were all the required checks carried out prior to commencement of employment," their report said. The centre has 20 staff.
"The board must take immediate action to complete all outstanding checks and ensure that henceforth all necessary checks are completed before a member of staff takes up duty," it added.
While they noted that some staff took up their jobs before the requirement for Garda vetting, this was not the case with all of them.
Staff said new people taken on would have been checked with local gardaí while a full Garda clearance was pending. "Where this occurs it ought to be clearly recorded," the report said.
At the time of inspection there were three boys, aged 11 to 15, living in the centre. They had been living there between 1½ and five years, even though the centre was meant to house children on a short to medium term basis only.
The centre, adjacent to a convent and church, had been run by a religious order up to 2001 when it was handed over to the Southern Health Board.
"The order had leased the premises to the board for a five-year period but subsequently it was agreed that the building would come into the ownership of the health board as part of the agreement between the Government and religious orders for the redress of wrongs suffered by people in institutional care in the past," the report said.
Despite the concerns raised, the inspectors found that the young people were happy and felt staff looked after them well. Their parents were also satisfied.
Responding to the report, the health board, in a statement, said it would take on board the report's recommendations.
"The SHB has taken its responsibility for quality monitoring within its own centres and within the private/voluntary sector very seriously and in this regard has provided funding for a registration, inspection and monitoring unit.
"The responsibility of the monitoring unit will include tracking progress within SHB residential childcare facilities as per Social Services Inspectorate recommendations," it added. The board also plans to look at redeveloping or selling the building.