Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 2 October 2025
Public Accounts Committee
Financial Statements 2024: Tusla - the Child and Family Agency
2:00 am
Ms Kate Duggan:
I just want to give a small bit of context. We have two cohorts, almost, of young people when we talk about this. The first cohort is what we call young people who are in our foster care or in our residential care services, in our mainstream services. Some of those young people present with very complex behaviour. They may be involved in risk-taking behaviour. They may therefore be deemed as missing if they do not return to the centre within, for example, 15 minutes of a curfew. There may be somebody for whom there is a risk when they go out to meet their friend. We always have to allow them to live the normal life of a 14- or 15-year-old. If they do not return within 15 or 30 minutes of their curfew, they are reported as missing at that point in time. That is something under our regulations and in terms of HIQA. As regards one cohort, when we describe the numbers of missing - and I can give the Deputy the numbers and share them subsequently if he wants them-----
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