The Health Service Executive (HSE) says a total of 37 children have died in State care over the past ten years.

In a statement this evening, the Executive says 18 of the children died of ‘unatural’ causes – while 19 died because of illness or other natural causes.

It took a showdown with the Taoiseach and Ministers for Health and Children to get the HSE to finally clarify the numbers this evening.

In a statement, the Executive says a total of 37 children died in State care over the past decade – from January 2000 to the end of April this year.

19 children died of what’s being called natural causes or illness – such as a brain tumor, heart conditions or leukemia.

18 children died of unnatural causes, and the Executive breaks these down: 5 by suicide, 5 were drug related, 2 were unlawfully killed, 3 died in road crashes, and 3 died in accidents.

20 of the children were teenagers and 17 were younger.

It’s understood the HSE now intends to count up how many children died who had some child protection or social work services contact – and also the number of young adults who had been in State care previously.

These figures should be available by the end of next week.