Between 1 January 1946 and 25 June 1947, 1000 aliens were registered under the Aliens Act 1935 as having immigrated to Ireland, of whom 462 were children; 421 of those were German, all but 18 of whom came via the Red Cross. Some were orphans but others had parents incapable of caring for them, for reasons such as internment as POWs, homelessness, or illness. In 1949, when the time came to return to Germany, many children did not wish to do so. Where host and German families were both willing, the SGCS applied to the government to allow the children to stay in Ireland. Against the wishes of the Red Cross, about fifty did so.