A new report into applications for children to be taken into State care in the Republic of Ireland has found that in seven in ten of the cases examined, the children involved were being raised by single parents at the time of the Child and Family Agency taking them into care, with a further 10 per cent being raised by cohabiting couples.

The Second Interim Report of the Child Care Law Reporting Project examined 486 childcases between September 2013 and July this year, involving 864 children, or just over 20% of all children in court-ordered care.

It found that in the majority of cases (57.4 per cent) both parents “were cited as respondents. The mother was the sole respondent in just under a third (31.1 per cent).”

“However” the report continues “ these figures do not mean that in the majority of cases the parents were parenting together. That was only the case in one in five cases (10.9 per cent were married, 8.9 per cent co-habiting). In over 70 per cent of the cases the parent, normally the mother, was parenting alone, either because she was single, following the breakdown of a relationship, or because the child’s other parent was dead, in prison or missing. In the remaining 10 per cent both parents were dead or missing, the issue did not arise in the specific application, or could not be recorded.”

US data show that children are safest from abuse when raised by their married, biological parents. (See table).

In Ireland, 23.2pc of children are being raised by lone parents according to Census 2011 data.