Information on the residential needs of young people with a mental handicap aged 18 or under is set out in the following table. The needs of the 313 children who are deemed to require five or seven day residential care were included in the total requirement for 1,439 residential placements identified in my Department's report, An Assessment of Need for Services to Persons with a Mental Handicap 1997-2001, which was published in April 1997. Four hundred and ninety-five residential places have been put in place since then. It will not be possible to identify how many of these young people have received their residential placement until the national intellectual disability database is updated later this year. As the Deputy will also be aware there are some 600 children in residential care under the Child Care Act, 1991.
Number of young people with a mental handicap in receipt of, or in need of, five or seven day residential care, by health board areax