Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 July 2025

Committee on Children and Equality

Engagement with Tusla

2:00 am

Ms Kate Duggan:

It is important to note in respect of our HIQA reports, and we have had quite a few inspections recently up and down the country, that HIQA comes in and finds good practice and areas we need to improve. That is a constant source of assurance for us in terms of making sure we know the current demands and how our services are currently being led and governed. HIQA, in its most recent inspection report, which involved going into ten of the 17 areas, spoke about the significant challenge in respect of resourcing related to need. That is really important. We have a funded workforce and we are trying to grow it. We have more social workers and more social care workers but we have unallocated cases because we do not have enough social workers to allocate to all the children who need them. There are cases where we will allocate other professionals, and that is appropriate, but for children in care, the legislation and regulations require the allocation of a professionally qualified social worker. As Ms Mannion said, it will take us two or three years to see results from the apprenticeship scheme.

Further investment in terms of scaling up the apprenticeships, bursaries and other supply routes into these professions is what is critical.

In terms of special care, it is important to differentiate what we see as a child and family agency. It goes back to Deputy Ó Murchú's point. I know Deputy Dempsey raised early intervention and the right service at the right time. What is really important for us is advocating. If children and young people need mental health services, early intervention for disabilities, early intervention for autism, or addiction services at an earlier stage, we need advocacy around that for children. It is not so much the argument around the special care piece because at that point the child is really vulnerable and volatile in terms of life and death and safety to themselves. They may be suitable for special care but the absence of early intervention is what we are trying to advocate for across all of the different agencies.

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