The Ombudsman for Children is calling for urgent improvements in accommodation for children and young people in the care of the State.

Dr Niall Muldoon says in particular, there should be changes in the care of those with mental health issues.

His office has dealt with a number of complaints where children are being placed in inappropriate care facilities.

This includes being accommodated in adult psychiatric wards or paediatric wards, where no mental health support is available - often due to a lack of sufficient beds in the appropriate adolescent psychiatric wards.

Dr Muldoon says: "The children and young people placed in such settings are in need of care, compassion and treatment from specially trained staff but instead are just monitored to ensure they don’t commit suicide".

"We owe those children, who are in extreme turmoil and pain, much more respect than is being shown to them at present".

"This is a gross interference with their human rights and runs contrary to the commitment made by the State in 2011 and against the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and was no longer acceptable" he added.

And he says two areas where initial focus on care of children in inappropriate settings was placed by him - children within Direct Provision and 17-year-olds within the prison system - have not really changed.

"Both of these areas have political will behind them for change but the reality is that there are still young people being held in inappropriate settings without full independent oversight from my Office and the necessity for change grows stronger everyday", Dr Muldoon says.

Overall there has been a 9% increase in complaints to the Office of the Ombudsman for Children since 2012.

Notwithstanding the Ombudsman's concerns over the inappropriate manner in which children in care were been accommodated by the State, education was the biggest single area of concern - with 47% of all complaints relating to either Individual schools, boards of managements or the Department of Education and Skills itself.

Professional conduct of teachers and the handling of bullying complaints emerged as major reasons for complaints within the education sector.