A 13-year-old boy who was taken into care by the Southern Health Board ended up being looked after by a couple whose own children had been removed from them.
The youth had run away from a home owned by the board in Mallow, Co Cork, on a number of occasions and the board said it was unable to find him a suitable place to stay when he refused to return to the home.
A spokesperson for the board said it was investigating the matter when it was raised at its monthly meeting yesterday.
The youth was taken from his mother six years ago and the board has since then taken her seven other children into care at some time or other.
His older brother was homeless at Christmas and is now being looked after by a woman who noticed him hanging around near her place of work. She receives £15 grocery vouchers which she can cash only in a Cork city store although she lives in Carrigaline, Co Cork.
When the teenager refused to return to the home the board gave him a daily voucher worth £4 which he could exchange for meals in a city centre cafe. He went to live with friends of his mother who evicted him last Friday week because they were not receiving any money from the board.
He informed social workers and was given £30 to bring to the couple, who then agreed he could stay for the weekend. However, they evicted him again, the following Monday and Mrs Margaret O'Mahony met him in the cafe.
When she brought him to the health board she was told it could not find him accommodation. He then spent two nights with a 16-year-old youth whom he met in the board's offices, who was in care and living in a single bed sit paid for by the board. A friend of Mrs O'Mahony's who heard about the teenager's plight agreed to take him on a temporary basis.
The matter was raised at yesterday's meeting by Cllr Con O'Leary who accused the board of failing to live up to its responsibilities. "When you take a child from its parents, you have the responsibility of looking after that child. Handing him £4 food vouchers and agreeing to his living on the streets or with other people deemed unfit to look after their own children amounts to neglect."
A spokesperson for the board, said It understood the boy's mother was looking after him while he was staying with the couple.