An inspection of a health board-run children's residential centre in Dublin has found children in the home were left without social workers for up to two years.
The impact, according to the inspectors' report, was "detrimental".
The report, which has been seen by The Irish Times, was compiled by the Irish Social Services Inspectorate (ISSI) following its visit to the Cuan Solas Children's Residential Centre.
It said the reason children were without social workers was because of a shortage of such staff in the Northern Area Health Board, which runs the centre.
The service offered to the six residents in the home, aged 12 to 17, had suffered due to the lack of social work input, according to the report. "The absence of social workers had had a detrimental impact on the service offered to the young people and their families. There had been no care planning and reviews.
"The young people had no external advocates, their contact with siblings outside the centre had diminished and their parents were not always informed of significant events in their lives," it said. The inspection was carried out in October and the ISSI report was received by the health board earlier this month. It noted that the difficulty in relation to social worker shortages was rectified in recent months.
The health board, in a statement, said in common with other health service providers, it had difficulty recruiting social workers. "Recently the situation has dramatically improved due to the success of intensive recruitment campaigns at home and abroad," it added,
The health board now had 104 social workers on its staff and vacancies for a further 14, the statement noted. "However, 17 new social workers, recruited overseas, will commence work with the board during the first quarter of 2003 when the complement for the board is expected to be filled. "All children at the centre have been allocated a social worker," the statement added.
The report noted that no member of the staff had a professional childcare qualification. The health board statement stressed that while staff did not have childcare qualifications they had qualifications in psychology, teaching, and nursery nursing.The inspectors said the centre offered a very good standard of care to the young people, despite the problems.