The Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, is to meet the Eastern Regional Health Authority to find out why a 16-year-old girl who was tortured, raped and mutilated by her father was left without adequate residential care.
Mr Martin said a "serious system failure" was to blame for the situation.
He told The Irish Times last night he was "very upset" on hearing of the girl's circumstances "because this girl has gone through too much already".
His first priority, he said, was "to make sure that this child has been properly catered for straight away". Steps were being taken to ensure she was provided with appropriate residential care immediately.
Mr Martin said there could be difficulties in dealing with particular cases. "But I think the system has to be robust enough and flexible enough to cater for the most severe cases. In my opinion, we have to learn lessons very, very quickly from this case."
The Minister of State for Children, Ms Mary Hanafin, said she was "appalled" that the girl spent her days on the streets.
"Like people all over the country, the first I heard of this was in The Irish Times yesterday morning. I, too, was appalled that a girl who had suffered as much as she did could end up on the streets."
Speaking on RTE television last night, Ms Hanafin said the Northern Area Health Board had assured her yesterday that they had a permanent bed for the girl in a hostel for the next week and after that she would go to a home which would be staffed 24 hours a day.
The Fine Gael spokesman on health and children, Mr Gay Mitchell, said it was simply not good enough for the Government to say that resources were being made available. A case as acute as this needed a compassionate and comprehensive response immediately, he said.
Ms Hanafin said the rest of the girl's family were in care and arrangements made for them were working out very well. She said a lot needed to be done to co-ordinate the good work carried out by the voluntary and statutory agencies to deal with homeless children, but this was not being approached in a co-ordinated way.
The Department of Health had allocated money for this, including £1.5 million recently to provide locally-based services in Dublin and surrounding areas.