James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The only way to answer that question is to put to the Chairman that HIQA began inspecting children and family services in 2013 and it has inspected the Tusla child protection services in 12 of the 17 integrated service areas, ISAs nationally. Eleven of these reports have already been published and the twelfth report is expected to be published shortly. The committee will be aware that HIQA found five of the areas were performing to a high standard in how they managed referrals but it found some problems in the remaining seven areas, mainly in the length of time a child had to wait for an allocated social worker. However, the duty system was managing the risk in an acceptable way. That is critically important. On many occasions we have had the discussion, that although it is a high priority, it does not mean it has not been assessed because emergencies and immediate risk are dealt with immediately. HIQA found, as I stated, there were profound problems in three areas with how referrals were being dealt with and the local area has put in place an action plan to deal with the problems.

I take seriously any issue regarding the safety of a child and I am glad to say that HIQA provides an independent reassurance on the standard of service provided to vulnerable children. These inspection reports are published on the HIQA website.

In answer to the Chairman's question, in the main most of these services have been inspected but there still remains some outstanding ones. Therefore, I cannot give a cast-iron guarantee.