Updated 13.00
Just over one in four child protection cases involves families where at least one parent is an immigrant.
The final report from the Child Care Law Reporting Project has found that ethnic minorities and disabled children feature frequently in child protection cases.
The analysis, which covers nearly 1,200 cases over three years, also found a disproportionate number of parents suffered from mental health issues.
Launching the report Chief Justice Susan Denham said that more supports should be given to parents with intellectual disabilities who find themselves before the courts.
"There is a link between these problems and neglect, which results in children being taken into care. The effects on children are harrowing."
The report makes a number of recommendations for reform to Child Care law here.
The most important of them is the establishment of a family law court – according to Noleen Blackwell from the Free Legal Advice Centre:
"In family law cases people are at their most vulnerable, parents, children, grannies, everybody involved."
Director of the Child Care Law Reporting Project, Dr Carol Coulter, says often more than one factor affected those involved:
"You usually find that the parents suffer either from mental health problems, from addiction, from a cognitive disability... a large proportion of the parents, we were very surprised to find, came from an ethnic minority - they had recently come to Ireland - perhaps that also compounded their social isolation.
Dr Coulter spoke to Newstalk Breakfast:
