Educational Attendance and Attainment of Children in Care, 2018 - 2023

Age, gender, and nationality

In this report, of the 9,744 children in care in January 2023 or children who left care since April 2018, 77% (or 7,534) were successfully linked to other pseudonymised administrative data sources including Revenue, Department of Education and the Department of Social Protection among others (also see Supplementary Statistics). This report presents a statistical educational thematic overview of the children that could be linked only. For further information on the data sources, linking procedures and definitions of this report, see Background and Methodology.

Of the 7,534 individuals that could be linked, 5,112 were children in care in January 2023, and the remaining 2,422 were children who left care since April 2018 (1,844 of whom turned 18 during this time and are no longer children in care).

The age of children in care is shown in Table 2.1 and Figure 2.1.

Most of the matched children in care in January 2023 or who left care since April 2018 were Irish nationals (95% and 93% respectively), while overall 49% were female and 51% were male, see Tables 2.2 and 2.3 and Figures 2.2 and 2.3.

Children in care and all children

Tables 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 provide a comparison for the linked children in care with all children (see Background and Methodology for the definition of ‘all children’). Children in care that could be matched to other pseudonymised administrative datasets have a similar breakdown by sex and nationality as all children, but the former were more likely to be Irish (95% of the matched children in care compared with 89% of all children).

Legal status and placement type

Of the children in care in January 2023, 81% were in care under a care order (including interim, emergency and special care orders), while 19% were in care under a voluntary care arrangement, see Figure 2.4 and Table 2.4, while these figures were 64% and 35% respectively for children who left care since April 2018.

Looking at placement type, of the children in care in January 2023, 91% were placed with a foster carer (including a foster carer who is a relative), with 7% in residential care (general and special care), see Figure 2.5 and Table 2.5, while this was 76% and 16% respectively for children who left care since April 2018.

Length in care

When in care, children are placed in a specific care environment with individual placements of varying lengths of time.

Defining placements, for the purposes of this analysis, as having a duration of at least one week, over half of all children in care (56%) had a single placement. In all 43% of children in care in January 2023 had two or more placements, similar to 47% for those that left care since April 2018, see Figure 2.6 and Table 2.6.

Of the children in care 61% spent 5 or more years on placements in care compared with 54% of those that left care since April 2018, see Figure 2.7 and Table 2.7.