Educational Attendance and Attainment of Children in Care, 2018 - 2024

Age, sex and nationality

In this release, of the 10,437 children in care in January 2024 or children who left care since April 2018, 81% (or 8,435) were successfully linked to other pseudonymised administrative data sources including Revenue Commissioners, Department of Education and the Department of Social Protection among others (see also Supplementary Statistics). This release presents a statistical educational thematic overview of those 8,435 children that could be linked only. For further information on the data sources, linking procedures and definitions of this release, see Background Notes. The percentage successfully linked (81%) is an increase on the 77% linked in last year's release.

Of the 8,435 individuals that could be linked for this release, 5,257 were children in care in January 2024, and the remaining 3,178 were children who left care since April 2018 (2,441 of whom turned 18 during this time).

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

Most of the linked children in care in January 2024 or who left care since April 2018 were Irish nationals (94% and 93% respectively), while overall 49% were female and 51% were male, see Figures 2.2 and 2.3 and Tables 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 Notes for the definition of ‘all children’). Children in care that could be linked 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 (94% of the total linked children in care cohort compared with 87% of all children).

Legal status and placement type

Of the children in care in January 2024, 73% were in care under a care order, 14% under a voluntary care arrangement and 8% under an interim care order (see Figure 2.4 and Table 2.4). For children who left care since April 2018, just under 50% were under a care order, 34% under a voluntary care arrangement and 7% under an interim care order.

Looking at placement type, of the children in care in January 2024, 88% were placed in foster care (including general and relative foster care), with 9% in residential care (general and special), see Figure 2.5 and Table 2.5. For children who left care since April 2018, the final placement type before leaving care was foster care at over 75% and residential care at 16%.

Number of placements

When in care, children are placed in a specific care environment with individual placements of varying lengths of time which can range from days to years. Note that children with a total time in care of less than seven days across all placements were excluded from this analysis.

Half of children in care (50%) in January 2024 had a single care placement while 9% had more than five placements (see Figure 2.6 and Table 2.6). For children who left care since April 2018, 47% had a single placement and 14% had more than five.