Ms Kate Duggan:

Two of those children died in accidents and that is very difficult. Two of those children died of overdoses, and that goes back to the point on the need for addiction services. It is really important to put this in context because of Tusla's responsibility to children who are in care and the staff who look after those children. It is 27 children over an 11-year period. Accidents and natural causes accounted for the deaths of 17 of those children. We report all of those deaths to the national review panel for investigation and we do an internal review to examine our engagement with the services. The other number that makes the figure larger is that over the 11-year period in question, there would have been 216 deaths of children who were known to Tusla; that is, children who were known to our family support services or community and voluntary services. It is very important that the narrative around the death of children in State care is contextualised on where the argument needs to be.