Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 2 October 2025
Public Accounts Committee
Financial Statements 2024: Tusla - the Child and Family Agency
2:00 am
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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This morning, we will engage with Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, to discuss its 2024 financial statements. We are joined by the following representatives from Tusla: Ms Kate Duggan, chief executive officer; Mr. Pat Smyth, national director for finance and corporate services; Ms Pamela Benson, head of legal services; Ms Rosarii Mannion, national director for people and change; and Mr. Gerry Hone, interim national director for services and integration.
We are also joined by the following officials from the Department of Children, Disability and Equality: Ms Lara Hynes, assistant secretary, child policy Tusla governance division; and Mr. Andrew Patterson, principal officer, Tusla governance and performance oversight unit.
We are joined by officials from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, including the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, who is a permanent witness to the committee, and Mr. John Crean, deputy director at the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. You are all very welcome.
I also wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards any reference you may make to other persons in your evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who will give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. This means that you have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything you say at the meeting. However, you are expected not to abuse this privilege and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if your statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, you will be directed to discontinue your remarks. It is imperative that you comply with any such direction.
Witnesses are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that you should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if your statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, you will be directed to discontinue your remarks and it is imperative that you comply with any such direction.
I will now call on the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, for his opening statement.
Mr. Seamus McCarthy:
The Child and Family Agency's financial statements for 2024 record total income of €1.2 billion. Vote 40 – Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth provided recurrent funding of €1.14 billion and €17.5 million for capital investment. Vote 26 – Education supplied a further €57 million, mainly in respect of the school completion programme. The agency's expenditure in 2024 amounted to €1.2 billion. Some €417 million was incurred in payroll and pension costs. This included €60 million spent on hiring agency staff. At the end of 2024, Tusla employed 5,320 whole-time equivalent staff. This was up 6% from end 2023.
Non-pay expenditure of €777 million was incurred in 2024. This included €299 million spent on the provision of independent placements for children or young people in need of a place of safety, including the use of special emergency arrangements due to a shortfall in existing residential capacity. Some €217 million was spent on direct grants to community, voluntary and charitable organisations delivering a range of child and family services. A total of €131 million was spent on statutory foster care and related allowances.
Expenditure on legal services and guardian ad litem costs was €38 million and €70 million was spent on non-pay administration expenses. The expenditure on independent placement provision included €61.3 million related to the placement of separated children seeking international protection. This was up from €33.1 million in 2023, representing an increase of 85% year on year.
I issued a clear audit opinion in respect of the agency's financial statements for 2024. However, I drew attention to the disclosure by the agency in its statement on internal financial control of non-compliant procurement of goods and services in 2024, amounting to €5.4 million. The statement also outlined the steps being taken by the agency to reduce its reliance on non-competitive and non-compliant procurement.
I also drew attention to expenditure on substantial legal costs and settlements arising from events that commenced in 2015 and about which there was a subsequent protected disclosure in 2017. Settlements on these matters have been reached with four individuals by Tusla or the State Claims Agency. Compensation payments to the individuals taking the cases have ranged from €49,999 to €309,000. Plaintiff costs paid in two cases amounted to €949,000. Plaintiff costs in the other two cases have not yet been determined.
In the case where the individual was paid €49,999 in compensation, the plaintiff costs were €870,000. In my view, the agency was obliged to seek the specific sanction of the Department of public expenditure for this settlement. That Department issued a delegated sanction to the Department of Children, Disability and Equality allowing it and its aegis bodies to make settlements up to an overall value of €50,000 in individual cases without the specific approval of the Department of public expenditure. This threshold value relates to all of the payments to the plaintiff, not just the compensation element.
The State Claims Agency's own costs in regard to these cases have not yet been finalised. Tusla's costs in relation to these cases amounted to €1.6 million. This includes €416,000 for an independent investigation of the protected disclosure matters, the report of which was subsequently quashed by order of the High Court.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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We will now move on to the opening statement from Ms Kate Duggan on behalf of Tusla, Child and Family Agency. As set out in the letter of invitation, you now have five minutes to make your opening statement.
Ms Kate Duggan:
I thank the Cathaoirleach and committee for the invitation to appear before it today. I am joined by my colleagues, Mr. Pat Smith, national director of finance and corporate services, Rosarii Mannion, national director of people and change, Jerry Hone, international director of services and integration, and Pamela Benson, head of legal services.
It has been 18 months since we last had the opportunity to appear before the public accounts committee and the first time since the committee was established. We are grateful for the opportunity to meet the committee today and it has asked us here to discuss our financial statements 2024. To start, we would like to give the committee a broader update on our work in 2024, which marked ten years since the establishment of the agency. In the 11 years since its establishment, the agency has grown significantly, with a 100% increase in child protection and welfare referrals. In 2024, we received 96,666 child protection and welfare referrals. There have been 5,823 young people in our foster care, residential aftercare services. Some 20,839 children were open to social workers. A total of 48,443 young people received a family support service and 8,659 young people were referred to our education support services for that school year.
In recent years, we have also expanded our services and implemented new services in line with changing policy and legislation, such as the birth information and tracing service and the childminding registration service. We have rapidly scaled up services to respond to an almost 500% increase in separated children seeking international protection, with 893 of these young people being accommodated or in the care of Tusla at the end of 2024.
Many of the challenges we are facing as an agency have been widely documented and we have been transparent in discussing the increasing demand for all of our services in the numbers referred and the number of children and young people with more complex needs who also require access to other specialist services, such as disability, mental health and addiction services, to meet their needs. We have publicly acknowledged the challenges we face in respect of an inadequate supply of registered and regulated emergency and mainstream residential placements, primarily due to property and workforce supply challenges. That is also a result of the complex needs and often challenging behaviour of a cohort of young people in our care, in particular those aged 16 to 18 years engaged in substance misuse or criminal activity or those with significant mental health issues.
Wider societal issues, such as global movement, poverty, homelessness, domestic and gender-based violence, drugs, criminality and exploitation, significantly impact the demand for services.
We continue to engage with other State agencies to promote interagency working to better meet the needs of these young people and their parents, who may also require intervention, particularly in relation to mental health and substance misuse.
We are also challenged in providing timely access to special care beds for the most vulnerable young people in our care due to staffing issues and inadequate step-down or onward placement for young people with complex needs to enable their timely discharge from special care. As a result, we have experienced increased scrutiny and criticism from the Judiciary on the impact of our capacity challenges on children and young people in the care of the State and under the oversight of the courts. We look forward to the review of the Child Care Act and the commitment to place interagency co-operation on a statutory basis and we welcome the commitment in the programme for Government to whole-of-government support for the delivery of alternative care services. Further strengthening of interagency working and the support of cross-Government Departments is pivotal to better outcomes for children and young people with complex needs.
It is important to recognise the significant improvements made by the agency since we were last before the committee through the implementation of our reform programme. The objective of this transformation programme across five key pillars is to ensure young people receive the right service from the right professional in the right place at the right time. Over the past 18 months, with the support of staff, executive board, departmental colleagues and Ministers, we have made significant progress. We have opened the first of five Tusla residential services since 2018 and plan to open a further 11 centres in 2025 and 2026. We have increased the number of Tusla foster carers recruited and are almost at our funded workforce, with the most social workers and social care workers ever employed in the agency. We have increased our staff retention to 93%. We have launched new supply routes for social work and social care professionals in the agency, most significantly a new social work apprenticeship scheme with 110 social work apprentices commenced since 2024 and an additional 100 places planned for September 2026. We have achieved statutory compliance with birth information and tracing legislation and successfully launched the childminding registration service across Ireland. We have made significant technological advances with the first digital integrated child record - one record, one child - developed in-house and under budget. We have published the first Tusla outcomes framework.
We are preparing for the launch on 1 January 2026 of the final phase of the transformation of our community services, restructuring our regions, areas and services to ensure equity of access, integrated service delivery, more focused governance and oversight, and more efficient services.
The agency in 2025 has an overall budget of €1.2 billion, representing a €141 million increase on 2024. This allocation reflects €75.2 million for mainstream costs, €57.5 million for separated children seeking international protection and €8.3 million for other services, including our Tusla educational support services. Additionally, we were allocated €34.2 million in respect of Ukraine costs.
While 99% of Tusla procurement spend was compliant in 2024, a concern of the executive and the committee has been to address the remaining non-compliant expenditure. We have taken significant actions in 2025 to address this, with in excess of €3 million of the €5.4 million in non-compliant contracts being procured.
Together, we have made progress. We received additional investment in 2024 and 2025 to meet new and existing demand and we know from external oversight that we are using our resources to ensure those most at risk or in need are responded to. However, significant challenges remain. When I appeared before the committee in February 2024, I noted our anticipation that service demand and complexity would increase. I stated that additional investment in capital and revenue would be needed to keep up with that pace. Today, I can say our anticipation has been realised. While we have driven savings and efficiencies, including a €30 million saving on emergency and mainstream placements in 2024, and increased productivity, we require additional investment in the 2026 budget allocation in our child protection and welfare services, therapeutic services, alternative care services, educational support and early intervention, and better interagency support to meet the increasing complexity of cases.
The work we do is one of the most important roles in the State and it is a privilege for us to work for this agency. We are extremely proud of our staff, who work tirelessly each day, and of our partners in community and voluntary services across the country, supporting children, young people, families and communities on our behalf.
I am happy to answer any questions.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Duggan. Just note that we will suspend for a ten-to-15-minute break at 12 noon. I now open the floor to members. The lead speaker today is Deputy Geoghegan. He has 15 minutes and all other members will have ten minutes. If time permits, I will allow members back in for a second round.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank all the witnesses for appearing today. I agree when Ms Duggan says her agency is carrying out some of the most important work in the State but that is why it has to be held to the highest possible standards. The case of the two missing children that has occupied discussion the length and breadth of the country has horrified everyone. Rightly or wrongly, it has brought into question the ability of the State to care for our most vulnerable children. I want to put questions on both Daniel and Kyran. In respect of Daniel, the Ombudsman for Children, Dr. Niall Muldoon, said that this devastatingly sad case left the State with serious questions to answers. We know Daniel had contact with Tusla up until 2020. What does Ms Duggan say in response to Dr. Muldoon?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I will refer to Daniel's case separately and come back to Kyran's case. What we have all seen and heard of Daniel's case is absolutely harrowing. I have come out publicly from the beginning to say we had contact with Daniel and his family. We are prevented from giving too much detail of the case because it is subject to a live Garda investigation. I assure the committee that the agency went to An Garda Síochána with information on the concerns about Daniel's well-being and safety. We have fully engaged with An Garda Síochána and shared all information. Our staff have met with An Garda Síochána and we have shared all files with An Garda Síochána. We have conducted an internal review, as we would always do, of an individual case. When people talk about Tusla, they immediately think of our child protection and welfare services in terms of safety of children and working with social work. However, a significant part - almost 60% - of our services across this country are on a voluntary, consensual basis where the work is focused on family support, working with parents. I am not talking about Daniel's case particularly; I am talking about where young parents may be struggling or families may be struggling with homelessness-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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My time is limited.
Ms Kate Duggan:
Sorry. In terms of that, I have confirmed that we had no concerns around child protection with Daniel. He was not open to a child protection service. The findings of our internal review are completed. They are being shared, as I understand, today with the Department, the Minister and the national review panel. We would support the publication of those reports when An Garda Síochána indicates it is the right time and does not in any way impede the investigation.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Dr. Muldoon has publicly stated in respect of Kyran and Daniel that there need to be ways to publish reports that do not impede the Garda investigation. Learnings should not compromise an investigation. There should be engagement with An Garda Síochána. What does Ms Duggan say to the child ombudsman's comments?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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He was explicitly talking about the reports carried out into Kyran and Daniel.
Ms Kate Duggan:
We are in constant contact with An Garda Síochána. I will not say it is on a daily basis, but certainly a weekly basis. It was on a daily basis. As soon as An Garda tells us those investigation reports can be published, together with the decision of the Minister, we will support that. We would want that.
I want to assure the committee that, taking Kyran's case, the internal review of the case had some learnings and those learnings have all been implemented. We do not wait until a report is published. Where any information is made known to us in terms of a learning for improving or strengthening a service, that is done immediately.
We are very proud of, and will hopefully get to talk about in this session, the digital transformation across our agency.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I will just stop-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In the aftermath of those cases, the Minister, Deputy Foley, commissioned Tusla or an external agency to carry out a review into the Covid welfare checks that were taking place.
Why did she do that in the wake of these missing children?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Does Ms Duggan agree or accept that the Minister, Deputy Foley, carried out this commission because of these tragic missing children cases?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Is that a "Yes"? I am sorry; I just did not catch that.
Ms Kate Duggan:
The common factor between both of these cases has been the Covid-19 lockdown. When we spoke with departmental officials and the Minister, the concern we had was that, where cases had been closed to Tusla and there had been concerns, those children were also not able to be in school or preschool and were not as visible within the community. We all agreed, and the Minister absolutely wanted to give assurances to all the State agencies, be those public health nursing services, Tusla services, schools, preschools or family resource centres. We have committed and want to undertake these well-being checks for approximately 42,000 children whose cases were closed to Tusla during the Covid-19 pandemic to make sure there are no concerns and that nobody slipped through the net during Covid-19.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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To put the question another way, so often in this State, it is either catastrophe or tragedy that leads to inquiry and change. Would Tusla have carried out this review into these Covid cases but for the tragic circumstances of these missing children?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Is Tusla worried and anxious that other missing children who have not as yet been identified as missing will now be identified as a result of this review?
Ms Kate Duggan:
One of the concerns would be - again, I am being very honest with the committee - is with some of the global or internal movement of people. It is about making sure we put the best system in place. We hope to integrate with the single client record system across the State to make sure we have a PPS number for every child. This is to ensure that we give ourselves the best chance of locating every one of those children and acknowledging and recognising that they are in contact with a State service. The public now sees, and we see, two cases of concern where the common factor was a closure of services where children in that particular age group were not registered in school and were under the threshold of registration in school. That we have seen two cases means the review is the right thing to do and we are certainly committed to making sure it is full and robust. I asked the Minister to ensure there was an independent chair overseeing it so that there would be a robustness, and also an interagency steering group. This issue cuts across children who did not get developmental checks and who did not get to see their public health nurses, their GPs or their wider families.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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What is frightening to me - I say this as a parent of three kids - and the public is that, only in June, the chair of Tusla, writing in the foreword of the annual report, said that after ten years, the agency had never been better equipped to meet the complex challenges rushing towards it. How does that statement stack up with what is now being carried out?
Ms Duggan did not say it explicitly, but unless I am mistaken in what she said, she has acknowledged that there is at least a risk that, when Tusla carries out this review, there may well be other missing children.
Ms Kate Duggan:
I think what the chair wrote was that we had had the most significant investment in the agency ever, with a 14% increase in investment. We are starting to see that now. We have more social workers and more social care workers. We are making progress, compared to where we were five or six years ago as an agency. What we are seeing, and why we welcome these discussions, is a tsunami of demand where children and families are in very significant-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I do not mean for this to be provocative but is there an acceptable level of missing children? Surely that is the worst possible outcome when it comes to the care of children, that the children themselves go missing. Is there anything worse?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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How then could it have been said in a report only a couple of months ago that we were in the best place we had been for the past ten years? Ms Duggan sees how it is difficult to understand or reconcile those two statements and the reality of what we are seeing.
Ms Kate Duggan:
I also think that, when we think about two children going missing, the immediate jump is to Tusla and child protection services even though there were also other services that were not able to engage with children and families like they normally would. There are 1.2 million children in Ireland. When it comes to child protection, we as an agency depend on all of the agencies of the State and on the public to help us protect children. That means that where there is a child and an issue relating to child protection, we have to intervene and there is social work and an open response under the jurisdiction of the courts. Where there are other children who are living with their families and are not coping well or have any type of difficulty arising, we are also reliant on other State services to flag any change in circumstance to us.
As I said in my opening statement, this is about society having an open discussion around child protection and the role we all have to play. It is difficult for any of us to understand when a child goes missing from one of our own communities, if it happens, how that could happen and what we can all do differently across State agencies and the wider public to try to prevent that from happening again.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I want to bring Ms Duggan to the four cases the Comptroller and Auditor General highlighted in his report on page 24. Ms Duggan will be familiar with those cases as they have been summarised. They all related to certain events that commenced in 2015. Is that right?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Did those events relate to missing children?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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What did those events relate to?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I need to say something at the outset for the public accounts committee, and we have discussed it with the Comptroller and Auditor General. We can talk to anything relating to the costs associated with these cases but we have a number of High Court orders that have been taken and are in place whereby we now cannot disclose details pertaining to the cases.
What I can tell the committee is that all four court cases are related. There are complex legal settlements around complex litigation but they are all on foot of a protected disclosure that was made regarding a service issue, which I assure the committee has been resolved. It is not a feature of, and did not relate to, missing children. I can confirm this to the committee because I have been asked it.
Those cases related to circumstances where a protected disclosure was made to the then Minister and where the board of the agency, on legal advice, engaged a third party to undertake an investigation. The High Court, in subsequent litigation, quashed that report. The committee can see what we all agree are extraordinary costs in respect of the four cases set out before it within that briefing. We have set out for the committee each of the cases, the total cost of the settlement-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Is Ms Duggan in a position to furnish to this committee those High Court orders in each of those cases?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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May I make that request on behalf of the committee?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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On the third case, I acknowledge what Ms Duggan has said about being bound by a court order - I am not asking her to break that - but it was obviously an extremely serious issue that arose. Tusla carried out an external agency report, which cost it over €400,000. The report was subsequently quashed by the High Court. Somebody went to the High Court and said whatever was in that report was a load of rubbish, Tusla agreed with that, arising from the settlement and mediation agreements, and the court quashed it. That was €400,000 down the drain, as it were. Then, another €800,000 in that exact case, unless I am mistaken, was paid in legal costs, presumably to the parties. I do not know if they were the agency's own legal costs and the other side's legal costs, but the other side's legal costs were paid, so we are now up at €1.2 million or thereabouts. Then, the other side got €49,999 in compensation. How does Tusla square that circle? That is an extraordinary sum of money between legal costs and the report, with the compensation being less than €50,000. What can Ms Duggan say about that?
Ms Kate Duggan:
It is an extraordinary amount of money. That initial report was commissioned by the board of Tusla in 2017. From 2017 right up until when we finally reached mediation on the case the Deputy is talking about in 2023, I know the costs pre mediation. They were High Court costs that were initiated against the agency. We all recognise the significant and increasing legal cost, which amounted to €720,000 pre mediation.
When I joined Tusla and took over the role as CEO, I had to take on this case.
My absolute objective was to move to settle it and close it out. I did so by overseeing a mediation process. The cost of the mediation process was €149,000. It brought to a conclusion six years of legal battles on this matter.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I just have eight seconds.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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For the avoidance of all doubt, there are no circumstances in which Ms Duggan can say, regarding any of the orders or settlement agreements she was a participant in for these four cases, anything more than that these were service issues. Is that the absolute maximum she is permitted to tell the committee about those cases? She cannot say anything more than "service issues".
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That is in respect of all four cases.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I welcome Ms Duggan and her colleagues. We had the opportunity to speak in the committee on children. It is great to have the opportunity to speak again here. I will reiterate quickly the points I made at the committee on children. Any conversation about the work of Tusla is always in the context of the wonderful impact on the ground that 99% of the time Tusla's workers have on the lives of children and young people. I always want to emphasise that the impact it has in many people's lives is very valuable and important and I acknowledge that from the outset.
I will pick up on Deputy Geoghegan's comments about the cases. How would the fee of €49,999 be arrived at? What is the significance of that number?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I can talk to that because that was part of the mediation I led on as CEO in the case. There had been agreement to move to mediation in this case. There had been previous High Court proceedings. From those proceedings and based on all the legal advice I received, I understood that if this proceeded to full hearing, there was a chance that Tusla would lose or not be successful. The absolute shared objective of the board of Tusla was to seek to settle through mediation. When we started the mediation, there were a number of issues to be resolved within it. The initial settlement that was requested was multiples of what was eventually settled for. I knew I had a delegation to be able to sanction settlements up to €50,000. I have confirmation of that in writing. Within the agency, it has never been custom and practice that the sanction would include any associated legal fees. Often at the time of mediation, people do not have the full cost of legal fees. I knew I was working to a limit of €50,000. We also had a date for a full hearing of 6 November. That was the date of the full hearing, so there were just a few days in which to mediate a settlement.
When I looked at the likely cost of the full hearing and the cost of another day's mediation - there are significant costs associated with mediation - and the fact that there was an absolute indication and collective consideration that we would lose, I made the offer of €49,999 from an expediency perspective. I spoke to the chair of the board and got consent for that. I spoke to the Secretary General and principal officer in our parent Department to confirm I had the sanction up to €50,000. As I said, I got that case settled for a fraction of what was originally looked for or even of what had been paid out in the other cases that were managed in a different way, and I avoided going to a full hearing-----
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I am watching my time. That is perfect. I thank Ms Duggan. I appreciate it.
I will move on to the additional workload that is coming with regard to the 42,000 children. How much does Ms Duggan think that will cost the agency?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Has that figure been requested from the Department of public expenditure or the Minister?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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What will the nature of those checks be? Who will conduct them? Will they be phone calls or visits? How will they be done?
Ms Kate Duggan:
We have just received this week the initial draft terms of reference from our parent Department and the independent chair has been assigned. That is Ms Tanya Ward, who is the chief executive of the Children's Rights Alliance. She will convene an interagency steering group, which we asked for, to make sure credibility is given to this oversight. That group will meet for the first time to sign off the official terms of reference. There are just over 42,000 children whose cases were closed. We have prioritised them as regards children who were in care at the time, children who were on the child protection notification system at one time, children who were under child protection and welfare services and so on. We have prioritised how we will do it. We are fortunate in this agency to have a digital management system for all our cases so we are now looking at trying to bottom out how much of it we can automate, to have a connection with the Department of Education and Youth IT systems and school registers and school roll calls. It is about working out how much of it can be automated. When all the children have been identified along with the school or State service they are in, it will involve a contact with that State agency. It will not be with the parents. We will get an assurance from a teacher, public health nurse or some service the child is involved with.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Am I right then that the priority will be that the first round of checks will be automated?
Ms Kate Duggan:
No, the automation will allow us to identify the children and where their schools are so that we have the most information possible. That is because right now, for example, on the Tusla case management system, if a child was three at the time, we might not have the name of the school they are in today or we might not have an up-to-date address for them. The automation is about bringing validity to the data we have. For every child, then, a State service will be contacted. For example, if we know Kate Duggan is in third class in Our Lady of Lourdes school, that school will be contacted or visited to determine the child is there and accounted for. If the school has any concerns, there will then be a direct line to Tusla to manage and respond to those concerns. However, where there is no known concern, no further action will be required.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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We are not guaranteed that every child or parent will be communicated with in these checks. The first port of call will be State services that we expect them to be engaged with.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Okay. For example, if 10% of those 42,000 children were flagged and Tusla said there was an issue, how would the agency have coped in 2024, if it had received 4,000 referrals, creating a whole new level of workload? Is Tusla ready, like its chair says? Is it resourced to the extent it needs to be to do this work? My concern is that these checks will potentially be an administrative exercise only. That is not a slight on Tusla staff at all. Are the resources there to follow through on the potential child protection concerns or welfare issues that might come from those checks?
Ms Kate Duggan:
We have been open. In the 2024 accounts, we had 96,600 referrals. We already know that is going to go over 105,000 referrals this year. Our staff have been dealing with 10%, 20% or 30% increases in referrals year on year. From our data and from HIQA as regards its external oversight and what it stated in its most recent reports, we know we are responding to the children who are most in need. However, we have situations where children who are medium or low priority have to wait longer to get a service. Our job is to use whatever resources are provided to us to the best effect, prioritise them for the children and families who are most at risk and make sure we are connecting children and families with other universal services.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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My concern is that Tusla will be asking the teaching community, youth workers or others to make assertions and judgments. If no clear terms of reference are offered to them, it is a big responsibility when they are also burdened by the work they are involved in. I am flagging that as opposed to questioning it at this point because it sounds like, based on those terms of reference, that it is a clarification of existence check as opposed to a welfare check, and that would be my concern.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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They are, but they are doing enough. This is an additional-----
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Tusla said it did not feel it was warranted at the time, but now it does. This came as a request from the Minister, even though, potentially, there were no child protection concerns. The only related thing here was Covid-19, but now we are prioritising child protection concerns as the first cohort of people we are going to communicate with. It seems very ad hoc, and that is not a slight aimed at Ms Duggan. It is just how the whole process seems.
I will move on. There seems to be a trend in the finances in 2023 to 2024. I know the overall budget is not massive but it is over €1 million each year in overpayments. What processes are under way to recoup overpayments within the agency? I ask because it is not just one year in isolation. To what extent is the agency recouping those overpayments?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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It is carried over from year to year.
Mr. Pat Smyth:
It is carried over. Just to reassure the Deputy, the processes over the last three years have improved immensely in terms of the checking of this issue. To give some background, we are part of the same payroll system as the HSE. It manages the 100,000 employees down there as well as our 5,000. In common with other shared services systems for state services around the world, there is an element of delay that causes these overpayments. Effectively, this concerns what happens where information is not received around staff leaving for things like unplanned leave or other absences. This is what is the basis of it. We have put in a lot of training and processes to improve the situation. I think we are seeing an improvement on that over the last year. We expect the balance to reduce as the years go on.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank Mr. Smyth for his time.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Deputy Farrelly. I call on Deputy Dolan.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach. Fáiltím roimh an gcruinniú seo inniu. Tá fáilte roimh gach éinne agus tá súil agam go mbeimid in ann comhrá iontach a bheith againn. I thank the witnesses for being here. I hope they are keeping well. I want to frame the conversation around the importance of the role played by Tusla. It has been broadly acknowledged by the Deputies here today. There is also the sheer scale of Tusla as an entity and the number of people contributing to the positive work that goes on in Tusla. I really welcomed Ms Duggan's comments around the five pillars of reform, the digitisation strategy and the fact the implementation of a digital record for each child coming in under budget. That has to be welcomed. A lot of good work is going on in Tusla and the witnesses are probably up against it trying to make it happen. I wish them the very best of luck in everything they are trying to do.
I will run through a few questions I have and I very much appreciate the co-operation of the witnesses in tackling them. I have to thank them. When I emailed Tusla back in May, I was responded to promptly and the organisation did publish all its purchase orders online, as it is mandated to do. That was really welcome. However, the quantity of purchase orders rose by almost 25% between 2023 and 2024. This indicates to me that Tusla is doing more outsourcing than perhaps it was previously. Is it fair to say that?
Mr. Pat Smyth:
No, that is probably not the case, but there is an increase underneath that to an extent. We changed the financial system in 2023. There was a huge programme as part of the HSE systems where we have a section called the integrated financial management system. There was a huge focus on ensuring that purchase orders were created for all purchases in advance of the money being spent so that there was much more control over that, rather than invoices arriving in and people running around looking to see what was happening. We also got rid of a lot of what are called "uploads", whereby the payments were done off the system and then uploaded. What we have got there is a lot more information. It is an indication of a lot more basic information coming into the system that we can use in a better way.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate that. That provides clarity. Tusla's financial system changed.
I want to turn to public versus private care settings. In my constituency of Galway East, we have a significant number of foster care homes. These people and the work they do are amazing. The relationships they build with these young people and the way they care for them is to be commended. What is the weekly cost for a child placement in a private setting?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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It is €420,000 per year. Is that just under €10,000 a week?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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It is just under €10,000 a week. How much do a foster care family get paid per week?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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That aligns to what I expected. I do not understand why we are paying a pittance to foster care families and we are then going and paying over €9,000 a week to a private residential setting. Can Mr. Smyth explain how that has come about and why we are doing it?
Mr. Pat Smyth:
I will clarify one piece first. We also have our own residential settings. My colleagues can explain the service imperative there. In the case of our statutories, as we call them, which are our own services, they are slightly more expensive than the bought-in services, for a number of reasons, which can be lined up. Once a child is in a residential setting and there is a need for the child to go into a residential setting, that is a very different space to the situation of a child who is just going to be in a foster care setting. I will just clarify that point.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. Is there a much larger wraparound service in a private residential setting?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I think there are two things. Our colleagues in the Department might want to come here from the policy perspective. Certainly, our first port of call for any young person coming into care is that we would first want to keep them, if we could, within the relative community in terms of securing relative foster carers, or in foster care. There are, though, a number of young people who are not suitable for foster care. There will always be a cohort of young people who will require a residential setting as being better able to meet their needs. I have no doubt, however, that if we had more foster carers, more children would be in foster care.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Does Ms Duggan think Tusla would get more foster carers if the weekly payment was higher?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I would assume it is one of the main contributing factors, in respect of whether people can afford to provide this care. That is a big question for anybody contemplating going into foster caring, because it is not something to take on lightly and the costs are a big consideration. I have met many foster carers. There is a huge amount of additionality in what they have to spend day in, day out to facilitate the care.
Ms Kate Duggan:
It is important to say that the foster care payment was increased in the last budget by the Government and that was very welcome. Additionality was also given to foster carers to support them with travelling expenses or bringing children on access visits or to appointments. There is also an enhanced foster care allowance. If the child needs to access, say, therapeutic appointments, that enhanced foster care allowance can be made to foster carers too. It amounts to up to double the foster care allowance.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. I just want to move on to non-compliant public procurement. It amounts to approximately €5 million.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Tusla is aware of it. The C and AG has highlighted it. If the procurement has been non-compliant this year, then it has probably been non-compliant for a few years. Can Tusla give a commitment that when it comes back to the committee next year or in the next 18 months, there will be no non-compliant public procurement?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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How does Tusla enter into a contract that is non-compliant? Who signs off on that?
Mr. Pat Smyth:
I will give an example. Let us say a local company provides taxi services. We could take an area like Drogheda, which is split between counties Meath and Louth. It may be the same taxi company but it deals with two separate local areas. A service like that is not centralised, as opposed to a procurement contract for residential services, which is a huge amount of money we would follow through on a central basis. This is in contrast to devolved responsibility, so when we create-----
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I am just conscious that this time next year, if it was possible to have no non-compliant procurement, that would be welcome. On expenditure for 2024, 18% of the budget went to community, voluntary and charitable organisations. How much money was that?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. No, that is fine. I am very tight for time. A total of €8.9 million was spent with the Peter McVerry Trust. We are well aware from all the media reports the significant woes it has been suffering. Is Tusla satisfied the money that was given to the Peter McVerry Trust was spent appropriately?
Mr. Pat Smyth:
We have quite a comprehensive review programme with all the agencies we spend money with. We have a very strict compliance process that we put in over the past ten years and that has been enhanced. For Peter McVerry in particular, prior to the issues that came to be disclosed with Peter McVerry, we had three governance meetings per year. We were looking at a specific fund of money that pertains to kids who are coming to the end of care and some aftercare. That is where a lot of its money is spent. It provides residential spaces for that. It is probably easier to identify because it is a slice there. We are happy that the money that was spent there has been fully accounted for.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I just have one last question.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I just want to make sure that Tusla is satisfied that money was well spent.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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A HIQA inspection for February through to May 2024 found in ten service areas at least 25% of children had no allocated social worker. Has that situation improved in the past year?
Mr. Gerry Hone:
Unallocated cases are always a challenge for us in terms of the increased number of referrals and the increased demand on our services. After every HIQA inspection, which highlights deficits of unallocated cases, an action plan is put in place and support is taken from our HR department and quality and regulations, and we all get together to make sure a comprehensive plan is put in place to address the list. Our numbers are falling. We continue to struggle in areas around the Dublin area to get adequate numbers of staff into the service, but that too is improving. The numbers of social workers and social care workers are increasing. We are doing that through a series of initiatives through our HR service, which is very good about setting initiatives around apprenticeships in social work, bursaries for students to attend third level education, and we have a learning programme around social care that we are piloting. It is hoped that might lead to an apprenticeship programme in social care. That means our staffing numbers are improving and there is then a correlated reduction in the number of unallocated cases.
Our unallocated cases are monitored------
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Sorry, I am conscious of other members.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Hone and everyone from Tusla. I appreciate it.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I am sorry, Mr. Hone. Our next questioner is Deputy Ardagh.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Chair. I am going to return to legal costs. I have some questions on the plaintiffs. I know the witnesses cannot give us a lot of background on this but can they confirm if it is the same plaintiff in all four cases or different plaintiffs? It is different plaintiffs. Why are some claims settled by Tusla and others by the State Claims Agency? There is delegated sanction for under €50,000, but surely the agency will not know if that will apply until later on in the case, so at what stage does Tusla decide whether it will refer the matter to the State Claims Agency or keep it and resolve it itself?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Therefore, as a matter of course, anything in relation to personal injuries goes straight to the State Claims Agency and anything in relation to governance or procedure, Tusla will try to deal with itself, is that correct?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Case 2 has two elements. One is a State claims element and the other is a Tusla element. Compensation is paid by the State Claims Agency for €100,000 and Tusla has paid €200,000. Will the witnesses confirm that is a personal injury claim for the State Claims Agency and a governance issue in relation to Tusla?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I note that no costs have been finalised for the plaintiff’s case for the two parts of those claims, for the State Claims Agency or the claim against Tusla, and that no costs have been agreed for case 4. Is it envisaged that Tusla will pay the costs and what are those costs? Will Tusla also pay the State Claims Agency costs as well as its own?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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As a matter of form, does Tusla send its bills of cost to the Taxing Master?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, and------
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Apologies, I have very limited time. On the fourth claim, the costs were in excess of €870,000. Looking at it, without any background, it seems the €50,000 was well under the delegated sanction and the costs were multiples of the award. Can we see the bill of costs for this case? Is Tusla happy to share that with us? Did Tusla get that bill of costs reviewed and checked by a Taxing Master?
Ms Pamela Benson:
That was done by a cost accountant. It was negotiated from a significantly higher fee down to the €870,000. It obviously envisages a number of years of proceedings. It was over the course of about three years. It is not just one year that the costs would have arisen but over each of the years as they were paid. It is just to be mindful of that and that it is not just a cost in 2023.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. On the cost that Tusla does not necessarily know to date, has it included in its financial records what it thinks it might be so it is not blindsided when it comes to a budget? Does it have a guesstimate per se of what it thinks the cost may be?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that. We are discussing Daniel and his family and Kyran and his family. Those families will probably at some stage be reading our transcripts, so it is really important that we acknowledge them. We are talking about learnings from their deaths but that is no solace to their families, so I just want to say it is awful for them, their families and all those who cared for them.
Tusla is doing a review of 42,000 cases that are closed. The opening statement noted that populations can be transient, there is a lot of migration, between immigration and outward migration. Are the witnesses aware of a case we have missed? Has anything been brought to their attention as of now?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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How far on is Tusla in that review? Has it started?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The review of the 42,000 cases.
Ms Kate Duggan:
We just received the draft terms of reference this week from the Department. I understand the chair and steering committee will have their first meeting, will review those drafts, sign off on them and then we will commence. This depends on the amount we can do in terms of automation and the validity of up-to-date data. We are hopeful we will conclude that by 31 March, and we have costed based on that.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I think it was Ms Duggan who noted that PPS numbers are helpful because it means you can check when someone is checked into a system. We use it for our schools. Is Tusla working in co-operation with the Department of Social Protection?
Ms Kate Duggan:
There is now, across the Department of Social Protection, the Department of public expenditure and reform - different Departments - one single record or one client view or one client record - I am trying to think of the right name. I keep saying this, but we are very lucky as an agency that in the past two years we have completely digitised our services in-house, on time and under cost. Because of that, we are now going to be able to do this in a much more automated and cost-effective way, which is important. Of course, the issue that is the most important is making sure that these children are safe and well and that no child is unaccounted for. We hope to be able to have, for example, direct access into school roll call systems and attendance systems. We are just working out that level of the IT element of it to support a much more efficient use of having the time for the face-to-face and the-----
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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If a child's PPS number has not, say, been used on a system in the past six months, does that spit it out to Tusla to go and make a check, or how-----
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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For instance, my sons both have PPS numbers and we use them for schools. The school is sort of active in a system in that they are in a school. However, if someone has a PPS number that is not touching base with the State, is that an activation?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Sorry, no, I am talking more generally. If someone does not-----
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Sorry. It is to keep track of children, or is it only children who have been-----
Ms Kate Duggan:
This well-being check relates only to children who were close to Tusla but, certainly, I have heard advocates like the Children's Rights Alliance and others talking about that whole system. Certainly, even people in Ireland who are undocumented would not have access to PPSNs. There is a piece to be done there in terms of wider learning for the State, I think, as to how we-----
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I have a final question about IPAS centres. How many children are in the care of Tusla in IPAS centres around the country?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes. That is what I was trying to figure out.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Why is Tusla involved with IPAS centres?
Ms Kate Duggan:
IPAS centres are obviously all around the country. I talked earlier about the fact that we have child protection welfare services and family support services. Within IPAS centres, we often provide family support into those services in terms of supporting children, getting them access to other activities-----
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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They are not necessarily in the care of Tusla.
Ms Kate Duggan:
They would not be in our care. If anyone were in the care of Tusla, they would not be still in an IPAS centre; they would be under the direction of the court in the care system. I can get the Deputy the number, but I think there are almost 5,000 children in IPAS centres. It is almost similar to the number in homeless accommodation.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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On the basis that there are no children directly in Tusla's care, does it inspect IPAS centres, or is that really necessary if the children are not directly in its care?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is fine.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Unaccompanied minors.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Unaccompanied minors fall under Tusla's care, I presume.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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So does Tusla have unaccompanied minors in IPAS centres not in its care?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Do they immediately fall into Tusla's care, though?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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And none of them are living in IPAS centres.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in. I know they have very difficult jobs and a huge responsibility. I think a number was said. Was it 1.2 million children in the State? That burden of responsibility, I imagine, bears heavily on all the witnesses' shoulders. We are here to ask questions, and all of us do so together in the full knowledge that we are elected on behalf of the State to ask the questions, but we do acknowledge the difficult and sensitive situations the witnesses deal with. As I said, I can only imagine that weighs heavily. We are thinking of the likes of Daniel and Kyran, obviously, and their individual situations and we are asking the questions on the basis that we want to know what happened - ultimately, that will come out - and how we can try to ensure that it will not happen again. Ms Duggan said that the commonality between the two cases was Covid and that it was felt that the limits imposed on Tusla because of Covid could have led to this. Was that the point she was making, just for clarity?
Ms Kate Duggan:
There were a number of other pieces in terms of the timing of both those cases when they would have been involved in services. Then there was a Covid lockdown. It is back to Deputy Geoghegan's question. There was a period in Ireland when there was not the same level of visibility on children, whether that was a GP, a developmental check, their local running club - whatever it was - where people saw children and had eyes on them. I am not even talking about children open to Tusla; I mean just more generally. We do see, and there is lots of research being done on this, the impact of Covid-19 on children in terms of some of the presenting concerns we see now, even in older children, as a result of Covid-19.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Would those cases have come to light at that time, and would Tusla have felt that there were others that might have, even as it looks back and tracks back, such that it might be able to say there could be other potential situations or cases out there that might be similar?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I am not going to disclose anything here that is not in the public domain. When we look at Kyran's case, we all know that, up until that May, Kyran was in school. We have seen the pictures of him looking very happy and healthy and smiling on the screen. That is the last picture and image any of us have of Kyran. At that time, the school did not make any referrals of concern to us. In Daniel's case, Daniel was younger. Daniel would have been a child who prior to the Covid-19 lockdown was probably about to engage in or start with a crèche or a local parent and toddler group and all those things that all of us do that impact children at that age. Those services closed through Covid. None of us know yet, because the Garda investigation is ongoing, when Daniel died, and we do not know what the circumstances of that were. Certainly, though, we know that the last of our engagement was prior to the lockdown.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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On that, how many children does Tusla believe are missing, from its own records, of whom it has just honestly lost trace, notwithstanding all the migration and potential migration that happens and the difficulty Tusla has in following those numbers?
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-----
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Yes, if Ms Duggan could, that would be great. I am just conscious of the time.
Ms Kate Duggan:
For example, on a particular day, 25 September, there were eight young people within our mainstream service who were reported or documented as missing. Four of those were in phone contact with the service but they just did not come back. However, in line with the regulations, because we are inspected by and registered by HIQA, we have to report that. Separately, with separated children seeking international protection, I have described how those young people can turn up. They are largely deemed to be almost over 16 or 17 years of age.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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But just even if I can get that-----
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I am referring to the 28 young people. We cannot tell exactly where they are.
Ms Kate Duggan:
It is important to say again that we capture that data and keep it open. Even though we do not know where they are, we keep the data open because that means it is open in the context of live Garda investigations and Garda interactions with Interpol. We are very conscious of them. We report them immediately in order that the Garda can take over.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I get that. I thank Ms Duggan. Was €1.2 billion the amount received in one year?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Is €400 million spent on wages and payroll?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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What is the approximate split between direct management costs and pension costs. How much relates to pensions and how much would be direct costs?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Of the remaining €380 million, how much was for front-line services?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Are they third-party employees?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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It was just that when agency was mentioned, I was not sure.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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What are the figures from a management perspective?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I am just curious about the front-line staff versus the administrative and management aspect.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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From a salary perspective, how much would the cost of that be?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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It would be great if we could follow up.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I know I am jumping around between topics, but it is just in order that I can get a full view of things. How many children are currently waiting to be allocated a social worker?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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What would the average waiting time be?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Even roughly or anecdotally, how long could the waiting time be? Could it be three months or four? I know every case will be different. If someone started in the process in the morning, how long might it take?
Mr. Gerry Hone:
Ultimately, it depends on the type of case we are talking about. High-priority cases, namely those involving children at immediate risk of harm, are all prioritised for allocation and are all allocated within the system. We triage our cases in terms of need through our duty systems. Those children who need help the most are the ones who get help first.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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So no one will be left sitting there.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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That is fine. I am only asking the question to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. It is no problem at all.
I am struggling with some of the legal costs. Did we, or I should say the State - and I suppose there is a royal "we" to this aspect - spend over €870,000 on a case where we gave less than €50,000? Am I right about that? On whose side was that the cost?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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It was €1.2 million on top of the €870,000, so that would be €2 million.
Ms Pamela Benson:
We paid €870,000 in respect of the plaintiff's costs for proceedings. As I said earlier, those proceedings ran over a number of years. Separately, we had our own costs. We paid in the region of about €1.2 million, which encompassed our lawyers' costs and various other related costs of litigation.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Obviously, it was far in excess of what was paid out. That is fine.
Ms Kate Duggan:
As we are dealing with the accounts, it is also important to give an assurance in this regard. This case dates back to before 2017. If we look at the situation in 2025, since 2016 to 24 September last, Tusla received 73 protected disclosures. We welcome that and think it is a really positive sign of people in the agency speaking out and speaking up when they have a concern. As of 24 September, only 24 protected disclosures were still open. Currently, none of those is being investigated externally and we have no third-party costs arising. We all sit here and look back to pre-2017 to something that was very complex, that was very litigious and that went on for years. We did then mediate cost effectively in the end.
I do want to give an assurance, however. It is important to bring us to today in terms of where we are regarding those costs and other legal costs we are dealing with now. We keep a very tight oversight of this area. We currently have about 15 cases open, or we had in 2024. Damages were paid in two of those cases. They were not paid to staff; they were paid in respect of a situation where there was an age assessment issue in relation to our separated children seeking international protection service and a data protection matter. To date this year, there have been five cases and, again, damages relating to two age assessment cases. This is where somebody we deem not to be a child or not under 18 and challenges this through the courts. There was also a defamation case. I want to give the committee an assurance around where we are today vis-à-vis where we are today in the context of something we are talking about that started pre-2017.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Yes, but Ms Duggan will see why we have to raise the issue as well.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Deputy Neville and call Deputy Joanna Byrne.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome Ms Duggan and her colleagues. I listened to her refer several times to the commonality and the main common factor in the cases of Kyran and Daniel was the impact of Covid-19. There is another common factor to both cases, namely the county of Louth, which I represent. Kyran was born, reared and lived all his life in County Louth, and Daniel spent from his birth up to the day before his first birthday in foster care in County Louth. Ms Duggan will be able to understand that in the context of the people I represent, many homes and lives have been ripped apart by the horror and devastation relating to both of these instances.
I am very disappointed that neither child was referred to in the opening statement. We have a full page of a briefing document that begins with the subject of child protection and welfare and there is no reference to either case, which is a little disappointing. I and three of my colleagues before me have referred to both these cases. It was stated that in the case of Kyran there were learnings from the internal report and that Tusla had learned from that. While I respect that, and it is very welcome, it is of little or no use to Kyran or his family.
I felt at times that when the cases of both these children were raised that Ms Duggan was quick to point out that when children go missing, people jump to Tusla, and there is a reliance on other State services to flag changes. I get that, but Tusla's primary responsibility is to promote the safety and well-being of children. This is why people are jumping to Tusla. I do not say that lightly, but I am sure Ms Duggan can understand. Unfortunately, we have one child who was missing and found dead and another is missing and is presumed dead. It took over an hour in all the responses to acknowledge that one of these children was dead. Instead, references continued to be made to missing children. It is important to acknowledge how severe it is that we have one child confirmed dead and another one presumed dead, which is absolutely shocking. Both these children were in services with Tusla at similar times in the smallest county in the country. It is important that is set out here today.
I would like to offer Ms Duggan an opportunity, and it is entirely up to her whether she takes me up on it, to comment on how she offers reassurance to the people of County Louth. It is probably fair to say that there are many people in County Louth who would not trust Tusla with protecting a loaf of bread, never mind a child.
That is being honest. Many people in a small area have been impacted by both of these cases. It is up to Ms Duggan as to whether she wants to take a moment to reassure them. There are obvious downfalls in safeguarding, vetting and oversight. Are there enough social workers in Louth? Have there been enough over recent years? I will start there.
Ms Kate Duggan:
I am really mindful of what I can say about both of those cases. I apologise if I did not talk about deaths and presumed deaths. It is because I am so wary of what An Garda Síochána is asking us not to say, particularly in a position like mine. We have been in contact with relatives attached to both of those cases and with the wider communities to make sure we are offering support. I want people to know that this has devastated our agency and the staff in Louth, as I know it has the communities in Louth. I want to put that on the record.
With regard to what we talk to, Louth is one of the busiest areas for Tusla. I do not have the specific details regarding Louth in front of me but I can certainly get them for the Deputy. In the whole of the country, it is probably the area with the third or fourth greatest increase and change in demand. We are concerned that Louth does not have a lot of community and voluntary sector supports. This year, we have some additional funding to try to build that. Across the country, there are family resource centres, Barnardos services or other community and voluntary services. Louth does not have the same level of investment in community and voluntary services for families.
Based on the demand in Louth, we know there are not enough social workers and social care workers. We are seeing an increase and now have these new supply routes. That has been our challenge for the past three years. We just were not seeing the number of social workers we needed qualifying from the universities to be able to appoint them to the areas where we see the most need. It is really important to stress that, with the apprenticeship scheme being led by my colleague Ms Mannion, we are able to recruit local people who meet the criteria for an apprenticeship and who we know are going to stay in the local area. We are not going to see the full impact of that until next year or the year after. It is certainly a game-changer in terms of being able to invest in social work services in Louth. However, there are many very good services for families in Louth. I have been out a number of times to meet services and partner agencies across Louth. Looking at the most recent HIQA report for Louth, it talked about the fact that we are using our resources where they are most needed. We are dealing with those cases that are most urgent and of the highest priority.
I will not have time to talk to the reform programme here today but we are changing. For example, Louth is now combined with Meath but, from 1 January, it will be its own area with its own manager and a new team. Services will now be about multidisciplinary screening. There will be much more support for services across caseloads. There will certainly be an impact. I am very happy to meet with the Deputy separately if she would like some more information on all of that.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate that, and I appreciate Ms Duggan's honesty and frankness regarding her concern that there are not enough social workers. I respect that. The oversight of children between the age of two and four is obviously an area of concern. Is it a priority for Tusla to close the gap? I know it is moving towards a digital integrated child record. Does that feed into this? What timeframe is Tusla looking at to close the net and ensure there are no more children in that crucial cohort falling between services?
Ms Kate Duggan:
When I reference that I am speaking more widely than just about Tusla. Children get their three-year developmental check from the public health nurse. Children do not have to register in school until the age of six, so there is an issue between the ages of three and six. All of us, including the children first interdepartmental group and all of the State agencies, need to look at any risks that may be there and at how to ensure that children between those ages are engaged with a relevant State service. It is does not have to be Tusla. As part of our reform programme, we will now be capturing data for the first time on the children who are accessing our community and voluntary service agencies. Where children are referred to us and do not need a child protection response but we think they would benefit from a Barnardos service we fund within the community, we will now be capturing data on that for the first time.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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If they are engaged with a Barnardos or a family resource centre-----
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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-----Tusla will have the PPS numbers and so on from that engagement. That is very welcome and positive.
I am running out of time. On the 42,000 children and the cases that were closed during the pandemic, I welcome that Ms Duggan hopes the review in that regard will conclude on 31 March. All going well, that metric will be met. What procedure has Tusla planned for cases where it cannot make contact with a child? If there is an incidence of a child who is not attending school, has not been to the doctor and has not had their development checks and there are concerns about that child, what procedures does Tusla have in place and how does it move forward?
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Is Ms Duggan concerned that there may be such instances?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I have to be very honest about the concern we all share about the movement of people, whether it is people moving addresses or moving within the country. It is about making sure we have every possible issue addressed to allow us to locate those children, particularly if they have a PPS number. It is about working with the other State agencies and making sure there are no data protection issues or other issues in our way. That is why we looked for an interagency steering group with an independent chair to make sure those agencies were never going to be a factor preventing us getting the information we need to locate a child. One of the things we have committed to is reporting on a monthly basis anything of concern that we see, whether we felt that five, ten, 15 or 20 young people needed a child protection response from Tusla or whether we found we were not able to locate two or three despite our best efforts and had to go to An Garda Síochána. We want to be fully transparent in these circumstances.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I wish Tusla all good luck in that endeavour. I am mindful that it is not easy work for the staff on the ground. I sincerely hope we will not be not sitting here this time next year talking about another two children such as those whose tragic cases we have had to reference today.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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As it is just 12 noon, I propose that we take a short break.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank everybody for being here this morning. I thank them for the work they do. I appreciate the heavy burden that is on them in Tusla. There were over 100,000 referrals last year, which was a significant number. We are discussing issues of concern but I am sure that the witnesses make very many positive interventions on a day-to-day basis and that must be acknowledged. I thank them and their staff for all the work they do.
I will raise a number of issues. Like other members, I am caught for time so I ask for short answers, if possible. In respect of separated children seeking international protection, the Comptroller and Auditor General has pointed out that there has been an 85% increase to €61.3 million for independent placement provision for those children. I think the number was confirmed earlier but how many children who are separated are we talking about at this point?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Those are children that we effectively have no background on in terms of family connections.
Ms Kate Duggan:
No, they are people who turn up unaccompanied to the International Protection Office and claim to be minors or the international protection officer considers them to be minors. They come to us. We can only use psychosocial assessment to try to determine whether they are under 18. It is a concerning area. We will be before the Department of justice the week after next to discuss the EU migration pact and consider the role of different agencies and the work that needs to be done on age assessment under the International Protection Act.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What is the age range?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is primarily the age group. Are some younger than 16?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That means approximately 20% are potentially under the age of 16.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is still a high number. We have no traceability in terms of-----
Ms Kate Duggan:
What we do when they come here is to provide care and accommodation. We try to ensure that younger people are prioritised for foster care or mainstream accommodation. We also have a role to play in family reunification. We must remember that these young people are entitled to family reunification.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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How many are reunited? What kind of success rate does Tusla have in reuniting minors with their families?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I think these figures are for 2024. Is there a similar level of activity this year?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That would be reflective of an increase in numbers.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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There has been an increase of approximately 20% in the numbers of separated minors presenting for international protection.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The vast majority will not be reunited with any family, according to the witnesses' historical experience. They will remain in the care of the State.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. I am going to hop between topics. On procurement, there is an issue of non-compliance. There is a figure of €5.4 million. When that was investigated, was it considered that there was value for money in all of that?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It was just a case of procedures not being followed. There is no concern around value for money, conflicts of interest or anything like that.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It was just that procedures were not followed.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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A number of members pointed to legal costs and plaintiff costs. There is a figure of €870,000 in one case when the compensation involved was less than €50,000. It seems extraordinary for that level of legal cost to be involved in a case where the compensation was so low. How many legal cases involving Tusla are pending at present?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Any kind of legal case.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Can I get an idea of how many we are talking about?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. However, there are multiple other legal cases.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The witnesses see it as standard for the work they do that there would be a number of legal cases always under the-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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There are two plaintiffs in respect of whom costs have not been settled. Do we have an indication when those costs will be settled?
Ms Pamela Benson:
Two of them have been settled. There were costs to the State Claims Agency in cases we were involved in. One case is remaining. We do not yet have the plaintiff's cost and we do not have an indication as to when we will receive them. We are following up on a continuous basis to get those costs.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will move to the welfare checks that are being carried out in respect of the Covid cases or those cases arising from the period of March 2020 to February 2022. A significant number of checks are going to take place in that regard. Do we have an indication as to how long that process will take?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is obviously a huge body of work considering the volume of cases. Are they being triaged for priority?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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They are. How many will be considered to be in the high priority category?
Ms Kate Duggan:
Approximately 60% would have engaged with us from a welfare perspective. Some 40% would have previously been in the care of Tusla or would have been a part of our child protection and welfare services. Approximately 60% to 65% would be in our welfare space. They would be families needing help around housing or parenting, or support to engage with disability services. There are lot of different-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Quite a high number would be considered a priority. They will be dealt with over the coming months.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am trying to understand. Those cases were previously closed.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I know it was raised earlier, but why did it take high-profile cases, media attention and so on for a decision to be made that welfare checks were required in those cases that were closed during Covid? There were obviously welfare protection issues and the cases were closed, yet it was never considered that we should revisit them.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Was it possible to make that decision properly during Covid? Obviously, the level of interaction was less and the work Tusla was carrying out was restricted during Covid. Decisions were made to close cases, yet they have never been revisited until now, until we are at crisis point, effectively.
Ms Kate Duggan:
I can only talk to the professional judgment of the individuals involved. Those cases were not closed because of Covid; they were closed at a point in time because it was deemed those involved did not need any further support from Tusla. We have to be conscious that under the legislation, under the Constitution, families have a right to privacy. When we deem that services are no longer needed, I think the learning from that is that families, when they leave Tusla and go back, often would have other professionals meet them and their parents, and that has not happened.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am just caught for time. Sorry, I do not mean to be rude. If they were not closed because of Covid-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----why are we focusing on the Covid period?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So other potential flags that could not be raised.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I refer to a report in The Irish Times in relation to blacklisted care providers and internal discussions within Tusla to go back to using some of these blacklisted providers. In one case fake Garda vetting documents were supplied and so on. How many blacklisted suppliers are we talking about in terms of the discussions that were undertaken within Ms Duggan's organisation?
Ms Kate Duggan:
Currently, within SEA providers, we engage with 14 companies, so currently there are 14 companies. We disengaged over the period since about 2022 with eight providers. We had some concerns. I have said this openly. We do not want children in unregulated and unregistered placements, we have reduced the number of children and young people in those placements, and now that we have the capital investment and the resource investment to open up our new residential units, we expect that number to decrease further. We disengaged with eight of them. Two of them members will have seen in the media. Where we had put in oversight and our systems picked up concerns with compliance, we notified them to An Garda Síochána.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Again, I am just caught for time, but is Ms Duggan at this point in time confirming that as regards all the providers Tusla is using in relation to, say, concerns previously highlighted, it is satisfied that-----
Ms Kate Duggan:
There are two companies where we have a derogation in place, and that relates to young people in special emergency arrangements. There are some young people actually doing better in those special emergency arrangements than they were in other arrangements. Where it was deemed to be in the child's best interest in terms of maintaining them in their network or their community, we have derogations in place for two providers but with additional and external oversight and with the issues that were of concern resolved.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I have one final question, Chair, if I may.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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In relation to children and the welfare issues, are there currently open cases where children had previously come into contact with Ms Duggan's organisation where it is currently unable to trace those children?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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There would not be any outside the category of international protection - children-----
Ms Kate Duggan:
I gave the figure. There were eight young people. I will get the figures. Four of them are in contact with staff and four of them are not in contact with staff and have been deemed missing for, I think, under two weeks. I can check it. They are young people who often just gravitate home, to networks of safety. We remain very concerned about the type of activity they are engaging in when they are not in their residential service, and they are notified to An Garda Síochána.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So four, and I presume we are talking about teenage years.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses.
Ms Kate Duggan:
I might just give you the figures, Chair, if you do not mind. A question was asked about the increase in terms of separated children. There has been a 13.5% increase in the number referred in the year to date. A total of 547 have been referred in the year to date, versus 482 during the same period last year, and there has been a 34% increase in the number of those in care or accommodated by Tusla. On 31 August of this year, there were 528, and that was 393 last year, so we are seeing a growing increase in terms of-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is a significant increase, yes.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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To clarify that point, they are children who are separated from either a parent or a guardian and who are presenting initially for international protection.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Does Tusla know where that presentation is taking place?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Where they present-----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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It is not at a port or a point of entry into the country.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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If a child presents at an international protection office, is there a protocol in place as to how the International Protection Office alerts Tusla-----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, but there are over 500 children now each year in that situation. Is that correct?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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So 547 children have presented either to those two points or others-----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. That is my next question. Of those, following an investigation, is Tusla aware of how many subsequently were confirmed as being children?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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My question is, does Tusla get that information back from the international protection service?
Ms Kate Duggan:
The situation is complicated, and we welcome the opportunity now to go before the justice committee to discuss the new EU migration pact in terms of roles and responsibilities around age determination because all we can do is a psychosocial assessment. We do not have documentary evidence, we do not have fingerprints - we do not have access to any of those systems. We also have to apply the benefit of the doubt because our biggest concern is that a child would be placed in an adult IPAS setting.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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As the person with responsibility for the Child and Family Agency, Ms Duggan is also responsible for the resources it has. I presume she would have some concerns that the resources that it perhaps needs to be directed elsewhere might not be appropriately directed if there are a large number of claims which are not correct.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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No, that is not the question.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The question I am asking is, is there an ongoing review of those presentations to ensure that there is an appropriate role for Tusla in that?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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What does that look like? What does that ongoing review look like?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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It is a slightly different question I am asking. Maybe I am not asking it correctly. What is the ongoing work between Tusla and the international protection service to ensure that the former's resources are not being wasted, essentially? Obviously, it has to deal with the case one on one, and I fully understand that, but surely there must be a point at which it reviews the procedure and says, "We think additional checks need to be put in place on your side" or "We think there should be an interim step." That is the point I am looking at.
Ms Kate Duggan:
We liaise with the International Protection Office all the time on that. We have now got agreement from the HSE in terms of having medical assessments done on the children. What we are reliant on, however, is new information coming to hand that may show that this person is not a child and is an adult. We have had a lot of legal action taken against us.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Are there international examples of other countries dealing with that problem?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Are those tests available to Tusla?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Is that because Tusla is not an immigration agency?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Does Ms Duggan believe they should be?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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In those scenarios a temporary arrangement might be put in place out of an abundance of caution-----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Yes. I suppose the fear with that would be the checks would take too long and the responsibility would weigh on Tusla-----
Ms Kate Duggan:
We also have some young people who have turned 18 who do remain funded by Tusla because the transfer to an IPAS centre might be very traumatic for them because they may have had significant trauma on their way into Ireland. They are very small numbers. It may be low double-digits, say under 20, but it is certainly a challenge for the service.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Dolan made a very good comparison earlier between the foster care system and the cost of private accommodation. Has Tusla done a review about the cost effectiveness of those two models? Would an increase in the foster care payment provide overall value for money?
Ms Kate Duggan:
Mr. Smyth can come in on this but I have gone out and met 600 or 700 foster carers and foster carers do not actually talk about money. Of course they talk about inflationary costs, and there was an investment in additional foster carer allowance granted, but they talk as much about the access to specialist services like mental heath services and disability services for children who are in care. I do not think it is quite as simplistic as money to increase the number of foster carers. There are a couple of factors.
On cost benefit, we were in a position where 90% of our children in care were in foster care. That is now reduced to around 87%. We are still a European leader in terms of the number of children in care who are in foster care but with society changing there is not the same cohort of people coming forward. A value for money piece was done on the price of residential placements.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Can I clarify that? The reason a child is placed in a residential environment is not because of a shortage of foster care parents.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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That is a useful clarification. On the other side of the residential care placements is the special emergency arrangements. I note Tusla's point that some children may do better. Part of that is that they have a much more intensive intervention. Am I right in saying the staff member stays with the person and there is more one-on-one contact than there might be in a residential environment?
Ms Kate Duggan:
It is probably sometimes the opposite of that. In a residential environment it is very restricted and regimented. They are subject to HIQA and they are inspected. There are one or two young people, particularly over the age of 16, who are 17, who actually like being in single occupancy and cope better. It is one child or young person on their own with staff. We have young people in special emergency arrangements who we would like to have in a regulated and registered centre. The cost of those arrangements, as we said, average at around €750,000 per year because they are normally single-occupancy placements where they are staffed 24-hours a day by -----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Can Ms Duggan clarify that figure? It is €750,000 a year for-----?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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That is a quarter of a million per child.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Apologies. Three quarters of a million euro per child for special emergency arrangements.
Ms Kate Duggan:
Yes. Now, that cost would have been over €900,000 and we have taken significant action in 2024 to drive efficiencies through the implementation of a new standardised rate card for that. Where that is not comparable, where you are looking at the cost of a mainstream residential placement, there could be three or four young people in that placement so the cost reduces because obviously there is not the same core level of staffing or the same bill. These are young people where there may be significant concerns around complexity of behaviour, engagement in substance abuse and maybe engagement in some criminal behaviour and, by being in a single occupancy where they are not living with other peers, they are able to cope better in that kind of arrangement.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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It is an extraordinary amount of money. I take the point about foster caring not being driven by financial incentives - I fully accept that, knowing foster parents - but surely there is some model between what a foster parent gets and three quarters of a million euro in an environment that is not incredibly dissimilar to a home though it is not a residential care placement, particularly when it is teenagers. From a value-for-money perspective that is an extraordinary difference between the cost of foster care parents and the cost of special arrangements.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I accept that.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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My final question is how many children does Tusla have under special emergency arrangements?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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They are coming in at a figure of over €30 million.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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We have approximately 30 children -----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Apologies, it is the other way around. We have 51 children costing how much?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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That is 51 children costing €35 million. It is an extraordinary sum.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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There has to be a better State intervention for those children from a value-for-money perspective and for the children involved.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I accept that the alternative arrangements are not much cheaper but for a very small number of children there is expenditure of €30 million.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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A critic of Tusla's service would say we would be better giving the children three quarters of a million euro each. We know that would not be good for the child but I am just saying it seems like a service that is costing way more than it should.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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No, but that is why my line of questioning was around those arrangements.
Mr. Pat Smyth:
It is legitimate to raise those questions but a child in a special care arrangement, for instance, would cost close to €1.5 million per annum. You are not dealing with arrangements that are going to be cheap no matter how you put it. The one kid to be managed 24-7 and have two people there at all times takes almost 11 people on full-time wages for a week.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Eleven people for one child.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I am over time. I think my colleagues might want to continue on that line.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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As I said at the children's committee, I do not underestimate the burden that all those in Tusla have. I really do thank them for all the very good work it does. Obviously, it is dealing with the most vulnerable children in our society. We would not be doing our jobs if we did not robustly hold the witnesses to account and make sure things are working between them and the Department. We have seen media reports on issues between Tusla and the Department. I would like to get some confidence that those issues have been resolved. I would like to hear from the Department on that, please.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It was reported in The Irish Times about very at-risk children who secure accommodation. There were a couple of reports a couple of months ago in the papers about contentious correspondence between Ms Duggan and the Department.
Ms Lara Hynes:
I suppose I would like to confirm that the Department and Tusla are working extremely closely together to address the issues in special care. We are working together in relation to addressing the short-term issues but we are also working together on a future provision of special care group to look at how we can put the special care model on a sustainable basis going forward and provide the best possible service for the children in special care.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that. The Department really does need to work in a very supportive and collaborative way with Tusla.
The burden of the work Tusla has unbelievably broad. The children it deals with are at risk and very vulnerable and it is very important that the Department and the State agency tasked with this very serious responsibility work in concert. A large number of data breaches have been reported since 2019. We have all sent a text or email to the wrong person but some other breaches that have been reported by Tusla are incredibly serious, such as communications going to alleged abusers letting them know where women and children fleeing their abuse are being accommodated, and an unqualified individual pretending to be a social care worker accessing a residential care unit and spending the night there with vulnerable children. We have seen a large number of incidents reported to the data protection commissioner as well as penalties and personal damages. Can Ms Duggan tell us how many incidents there have been since 2019? The information I have only goes up to 2023 but data protection incidents have to be reported within a very tight timeline. I assume Tusla has records of incidents that occurred in 2024 and even for the first six months of this year,
Ms Kate Duggan:
I want to give the Deputy accurate information. We brought in a very comprehensive GDPR programme. We absolutely recognised the level of concern we had as an agency and that our board had in relation to the practices and culture within the agency that had to change to make sure we were GDPR compliant. We do not underestimate that we hold some of the most sensitive information in the State. What I can provide to the committee is, for example, the report I get every month as CEO which sets out any data breaches, what they relate to and where there has been improvement. In terms of the data breach notification, there has been a 66% decrease in the past year in the number of high-risk breaches. That should give assurance of the work undertaken for the decrease, but we are still talking about-----
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that but what is the number of serious breaches?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Can Ms Duggan give us a flavour of the types of issues?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I can certainly give an example of one along with an example of the remediation to demonstrate. As I said, we have moved to a fully digital integrated system. That means there should be no paper records. However, there was an Excel spreadsheet that had information on it relating to children in care, and it was inadvertently shared with a parent of a child in care who had the same name as a staff member. That is an example of a high-risk breach this year. Immediately after that we were able to put a blocker into our IT system in order that nobody can now attach an Excel spreadsheet without confirming that it cannot be sent another way, it is password protected and they checked the name. We are definitely at that end in moving to those technical solutions. Our highest-risk breaches were post and email. Email is going to be dealt with technologically-----
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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For example, an alleged abuser is emailed information notifying them of the location of the women and children, what steps are taken to make sure those women and children are protected?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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How long did that take? As in, for what period of time did the abuser know the location of the woman and children?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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In the case of something like that there should be a process to move the woman and children within 24 hours.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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No matter where they are, if the abuser knows where they are ,they are in imminent danger from the minute the abuser gets that information. They could be there within 60 minutes. It is essential that there is a proper process.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Can Ms Duggan write to us and let us know when there is a process in place?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I urge her to expedite such a process. We do not want to see somebody seriously injured or killed as a result of a breach of data by Tusla, one of our State agencies.
I will ask about the State Claims Agency. A huge volume of claims being managed by the agency. The C and AG said there is a value of approximately €71 million-----
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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That is a phenomenal amount for the State Claims Agency to be managing in respect of matters on the part of Tusla. For some reason it goes to the agency, though I am not clear why. Could the witnesses briefly tell me why that is?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Why are matters referred to the State Claims Agency rather than managed directly by Tusla?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Is there potentially approximately €71 million to be paid for personal injury claims?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Why is there such a high level of personal injury claims against Tusla?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that but it is a phenomenal number.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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How many claims are ongoing?
Ms Pamela Benson:
In 2024, there was a total of 140 claims finalised with the State Claims Agency on behalf of Tusla amounting to €5.2 million. They can be broken down to service users, members of the public, staff members and property damage. Those are the four categories for all claims dealt with by the agency.
Ms Kate Duggan:
It is important to say we are now the State agency with the second highest level of violence, harassment and aggression against staff, second as I understand it to the Prison Service. In terms of incidents or assaults, if we take our children's residential services, we are looking at 1,169 incidents in 2025 to date. We have had 1,169 incidents of serious assault against staff members in our services. That is not widely recognised in respect of Tusla. People see it within the Prison Service. In terms of the work we are doing, we have made significant progress on reducing the impact of those assaults. Based on what we have done and the reductions we have made have, approximately 48%, we have been asked to talk to other State agencies so they can learn from what we have done. If we look at----
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I have four seconds left.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate Tusla staff are under phenomenal pressure and I thank them for all of their work. However, what measures is the agency trying to take to mitigate the assaults against people who work with Tusla along with the legal risk?
Ms Kate Duggan:
We spoke about this with our board. We are taking a huge amount of action in terms of the physical environment, training and induction. We have used close security personnel on-site in residential units and special care units and got the permission of HIQA to do that because of the violent nature of some of the young people attacking staff. We are now at the stage where - and this is where we talk about needing help – a lot of this is when young people are engaged in substance misuse and post-substance misuse, with mental health issues and struggling to get access to services. We see that the next phase has to be focused on the underlying cause of the aggression within the young people. That is what we talk about when meeting other State agencies. We are very happy to share the report we brought to the board last week demonstrating the actions we have taken. We have been nominated for a European award for the action the agency has taken to try to protect our staff. We obviously have a duty to protect our young people, but also to provide a safe place of work for our staff.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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How much of that was third party as in not claimed by employees?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Why were there claims from members of the public?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I have a number of questions. I want to return to the issue of the special emergency arrangements. How long are those arrangements in place? How many years ago were they put in place?
Ms Kate Duggan:
They are certainly there from when we started to look at our capacity across the services back in 2021 even. There was always a small level of what we called bespoke local area arrangements where either a young person had been in foster or residential care and was discharged or they were volunteered in to the State by their parents because they were unable to look after them because of the risk to them or to siblings. We did then see an exponential growth post Covid-19.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Would their use predate 2021?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Was it on an annual basis? Do we know how far back it goes?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I am conscious of time. Can I ask that we get a breakdown of the expenditure on the special emergency arrangements going back to when the organisation was established?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Can we get an annual breakdown that includes how many children were involved? How many companies does Tusla currently engage with?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Tusla acknowledged that the use of these do not meet the residential care standards required for long-term placements. What standards do they not meet?
Ms Kate Duggan:
It probably can be looked at from two perspectives and Mr. Hone might want to come in on this. For us to get a unit registered by HIQA as a residential unit, it needs to meet very high standards in terms of the physical environment relating to size and lots of other criteria. These special emergency arrangements are a residential domiciliary. It may be an apartment, holiday let or a property belonging to Tusla. They would not meet the environmental standards that would be required.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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So they would not have the same level of fire safety compliance required.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There are lower standards there.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The witnesses gave the figure of 51 children who are currently in special emergency arrangements and they also gave the figure of €35 million. Is that for this year to date?
Mr. Pat Smyth:
That is the expected cost for what we call the mainstreams. SEAs are used for two groups. One is for kids in mainstream services and that €35 million applies there. We use SEAs for the separated children as well. In that case the average cost reduces to €200,000 per child. It just relates to the mainstream.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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For the 51 children who are currently in the SEAs, the figure is-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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What was the figure last year?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The witnesses gave a figure of €750,000. That was for one child. My maths might be a bit off given the increase from €35 million to €38 million but that works out at nearly €700,000 per child.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Given that the care standards are not what they are for other residential care, does Mr. Smyth think that represents value for money?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Is €700,000 per child value for money?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Does Mr. Smyth think it is still value for money though?
Mr. Pat Smyth:
If we had bought that through a procured space and we have a fully regulated price, it would be more than that if we have to have one child in that placement. That's the critical factor here. The problem with a lot of unregulated placements is they are about trying to accommodate one kid. Our normal residential services are about accommodating four kids in a place.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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On the age profile, Ms Duggan kept referring to teenagers in the age range of 15 to 17. What is the youngest placement with a special emergency arrangement?
Ms Kate Duggan:
On 21 September 2025, we documented that there is a three-year-old in a special emergency arrangement but I have to put that into context. We had two large sibling groups that had to come into care. We made a decision that rather than separating all those children into different care placements around the country, we would place those young people together and put additional staffing, oversights, visits and all of that in place. The right thing to do was to keep the children together. Just to interpret that-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Have there been cases of younger than three-year-olds being in special emergency accommodation?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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It is my understanding that there have been 18-month-old children.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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In terms of that look back, Tusla might give us all of that information about the age profiles.
Ms Kate Duggan:
I can confirm that last week, for example, just over half of those young people were aged between 16 and 17. The next largest group, which was 20-something percent, was between 14 and 16. It is really important to say that we had try to place most of those young people in foster or residential care and that due to the complex presentations, they had to be moved. We cannot leave them in a Garda stations. We cannot leave them in a hospital. There is no home. We have to give them a place of safety.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Ms Duggan stated that most of the children who end up in SEAs were previously in other forms of residential care. How many of the 51 were in residential care previously?
Ms Kate Duggan:
It was almost 50%. Nine of those children experienced a breakdown in their residential care that week; 12 experienced a breakdown in their foster care; and 28 experienced a breakdown in their home arrangement. For a child or young person to go from a home arrangement straight into an SEA, they have to be either part of a sibling group, or they are one of the number of young people we have who are, unfortunately, engaged in significant criminal activity even though they are under 18.
We have a concern about criminal exploitation and drug use.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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From the statement Ms Duggan made, were the majority previously in other forms of residential placement?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Is it the case that these children are going into special emergency arrangements because there is nowhere else to put them? Is that basically what Ms Duggan is saying?
Ms Kate Duggan:
Some of them can be for a period of time. We can get a call from the gardaí during the night - a section 12, where we have to take a child into care and there may not be a registered emergency placement available and we would have to place the young people. Sometimes it is because of the complex presentation of the young person. For other people or young people in residential care or foster care, that is their home, and for us to introduce somebody new into that, an assessment must be done.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Does that speak to a gross failure to have the necessary placements within statutory centres?
Ms Kate Duggan:
Last year we opened our first residential centre since 2018. We have now got the investment for that. We are opening eight centres this year and into next year and we have the investment for that. We are currently in the process of opening eight other houses. When I talk of a house, that means four placements. What we are looking at is generating an additional 32 placements each year over three years. That is really welcome. It is because we got that investment.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There was a commitment in the strategic plan.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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A former Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, spoke about creating a total of 110 new residential places by the end of this year, 2025. How many of those new residential places are currently in place?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There are 46, so we are not even 50% of the way. How many does Ms Duggan think we will have by the year end?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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When will we actually achieve the strategic objective of providing 110 beds?
Ms Kate Duggan:
To open 110 beds we need a capital investment and a resourcing investment. When we talk about 110 beds, we talk about 25 residential units. We will be on track to deliver 24 of those by the end of 2026.
It would be remiss of me not to say that while we are on a trajectory to do that, we had this increase where we have had to accommodate 528 separated children seeking international protection.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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That was in the strategic plan of the previous Minister, Deputy O'Gorman.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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He spoke only last year about reaching the objective of 110 residential care bed placements by the end of 2025. That was after everything that has happened in the world.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I am conscious of time. For me, that is not value for money. We need to invest in new residential care placements. Currently, the cost is €700,000 per child in accommodation that does not meet the care standards. That is concerning to say the least.
Could I get a breakdown showing the comparison between the special emergency arrangements? I do not expect to get the figures now but Ms Duggan might furnish the committee with them. What is the average weekly or monthly cost per child in an SEA placement and how does it compare with statutory, voluntary and private-registered placements? Could we get a breakdown on that?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I am just looking for the headline figures.
Mr. Pat Smyth:
Yes. We can give the committee some of those figures now. The SEA costs €700,000. A statutory placement - one of our own - costs about €450,000 per child. A bought-in or procured price is about €425,000 per child per year. A child at the highest level, requiring a special care piece, is between €1.2 million and €1.5 million per annum.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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What is the cost of a voluntary service?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Just to conclude, it would be helpful if we could we get a breakdown by area of the number of SEAs, the number of children placed, monthly costs, and how that then compares with the voluntary and statutory sector as well.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I will leave it at that. I am conscious that other members want to come back in for supplementary questions. I will go back to Deputy Geoghegan.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I will follow on from the Chair's line of questioning. Am I to take it from what Ms Duggan said that the reason Tusla has not reached the target of 110 special care beds is because there is a new obligation in respect of 528 children in IPAS accommodation?
Ms Kate Duggan:
When I say new obligation, it is more because in Ireland we are working within a limited property supply market and workforce supply market. It is not that we are vying to place one or the other, what we are saying is that when we wrote this plan we made two presumptions. The first presumption was based on the property market at the time. We need to have a large property to meet the standards, and workforce supply is another factor. What emerged during that period with separated children seeking international protection is that often providers, in particular within the private sector - or the community and voluntary sector - sought to move to provide accommodation to separated children seeking international protection because they deemed that was maybe easier to do. They certainly expressed more interest in it.
The second thing is that, obviously within the community and voluntary sector, they were unable to engage with us to scale their capacity because they wanted the issues in the WRC progressed and addressed before they engaged with us about scaling additional capacity. Thankfully, that has now been resolved.
The second thing is that the community and voluntary sector is struggling to get the capital investment it needs to be able to open and build units. To give an example of what we have done, we have a hybrid model with one of the community and voluntary providers where we have used a Tusla facility and the community and voluntary provider is staffing it. They are just two things that have limited our ability to produce 110 extra mainstream beds. We have put an extra 528 beds into the system, but they are for a new and different demand.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that Ms Duggan is going to put on notice, in respect of all the four parties, her intent to provide to this committee the court orders in those four cases. That is if I understand what has been said here correctly.
Ms Duggan mentioned the 15 cases that were settled this year. In passing, she said they were not to staff. Am I to take it that what she meant is that the four cases identified on page 24 relate to staff?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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So they relate to staff members in Tusla. In terms of the decision not to disclose anything related to these four cases, who looked for that? Was it in Tusla's interest or in the interests of the claimants not to disclose anything to do with these cases?
Ms Kate Duggan:
One of the plaintiffs, but that order and by the nature of the confidentiality agreement that is part of that High Court order - Mr. Smyth may be able to explain it better than me in legal terms - meant in essence that we could not disclose any part of the case to prevent any possibility of identification.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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There was one other thing Ms Duggan said that really surprised me. She said that they managed to mediate the costs effectively in the end. Is Ms Duggan really saying that?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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But given the €49,999, and when balanced against €800,000 in legal costs and a €400,000 report, how could anyone say that the process was mediated successfully?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I was contextualising. To providing context, this was something that went on for seven years at the agency. When I came into it a decision was made to mediate to draw that to a conclusion. When we see what the legal costs were prior to mediation versus the costs of mediation for conclusion of the process, we could not have allowed another three or four years, and hundreds of thousands of euro, going to a full case hearing. That is what I meant.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Why did it take Ms Duggan to come in to make the decision? What went wrong here? How did Tusla allow this to go on for seven years to the point where over €1.2 million was spent on lawyers dealing with something that when Ms Duggan came in as CEO she said "Ah lads, we have got to sort this out, let us get this done"? Were there rows going on at a senior level about this? What were this issues? How could this have gone for so long when it related to a staff member in Tusla?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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There are very few cases, and one could probably count them on one hand, where the amount of damages awarded would be €50,000 and the legal costs associated with the case will be €800,000. It is very few. Something terrible went wrong here. It is very regrettable. The witness mentioned transparency at the outset and it is very regrettable from our perspective, and that of the taxpayer, that we can have no oversight in this. We cannot pierce through this but maybe when we get the High Court orders it might give us another line of inquiry.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses for staying with us. I will come back to the welfare checks and the 42,000. I am really open to the witnesses telling me that I am wrong. If I am then please do tell me. My concern is growing in terms of the breadth of work that is going to be consistent within these checks. Am I right to say that not one check has started yet? Yes. Right. I nearly failed maths so bear with me. I estimate we have approximately 120 days until 31 March. That would equate roughly to about 350 children per day being checked between now and then. How? As a youth worker for many years, the first thing I would try to do in order to establish someone's welfare is to ask them "How are you?". From the witnesses' first contribution with me I do not get the sense that we are going to be doing this, or that we are going to check that they are engaged somewhere else. Is that the extent of it? To me that is not a welfare check. To me that is "you exist". Am I right in the assumption I am drawing?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I keep pre-empting this because we have to get the final terms of reference from the Department and the steering group but when I talk about the other things such as the automation and the technical aspect that is just around getting valid data and making sure we can do it as quickly as possible in terms of being able to access other State systems to provide us with information about where to look, for example. What we are saying around this welfare check, and what is very important to us in particular when we look at Children First, is that we can identify that every one of those children is engaged with the relevant State service, whether that is through the public health nurse or through their school, and that there is an independent assessment of the fact that the persons do not have a concern, or if they do have a concern that they have referred it to Tusla or that it is being referred to Tusla. That is the most critical thing. If we believe that we need to contact the family we will of course do that. If we have to go out to a school and put our eyes on a child and check that, we will. We know that the mandated persons understand their obligation. They are in contact with us every day if they think they have a concern, or if they are not so sure and they ask "What you think?". They have an opportunity to speak to somebody, to talk to somebody, and to get their questions answered. We will not be verifying that welfare check as being complete until we have the assurance from that professional or mandated person that they do not have a concern about the child.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I note on the information provided that there are approximately 5,300 whole-time equivalent staff within the agency at this point. That has been growing relatively impressively over the past five years. I have a curiosity within my spokesperson brief, if the information is available, to get a detailed breakdown of the types of roles of employees within the organisation. Perhaps someone could forward that on at some point.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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In terms of the types of social care workers, social workers, and who is doing what.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Apologies; I missed that.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Is the information also there with regard to agency provision and agency staff numbers?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Has a costing ever been done of a comparison between the cost of agency staff versus others? My concern here is that the nature of our work with children and young people requires building relationships.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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If and when we have agency staff, quite often the relationship is not there to the same extent.
Ms Kate Duggan:
Just to assure the Deputy, we have a detailed and significant agency conversion programme. Any social worker or social care worker who is with us on agency has the opportunity to transfer into a permanent contract, obviously subject to probation, within the agency. There are some people who choose to work agency because that is what they want, and then there are periods, for example our welfare checks or where we need work done across particular programmes of work within services, that we may have engaged some agency administrative support to support that.
Mr. Pat Smyth:
I will give the Deputy a breakdown. We have about 180 or 190 agency staff at the moment. Three or four years ago, as Ms Duggan said, we had twice that number. We have managed to keep it down below those numbers. To explain a little further, about 60% of those are agency staff that are brought in for rosters, probably in the residential units more than anything else because we need to have staff there. Half of the rest are in front-line posts in the regions. Then there are some extra staff brought in around projects or other pieces. It is a relatively small number. It is an area where I am not sure we are going to be able to get very low in the residential side of it. There will always be an element of agency staff there. I believe it is quite tightly controlled and is small given the numbers, which is 186 out of some 5,500.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Can I ask one more question, if the Chair does not mind? It has been great to have this back and forth. I really appreciate it. I have one brief statement. The narrative seems to be kind of evolving on this side around the cost-benefit analysis of €750,000 per child in a special care arrangement. I have no direct experience of working in a setting like that myself but I have worked with young people and have experience of them. That cost is an investment in this child's welfare. They are often the most vulnerable and most at risk. If Tusla is saying, based on the information provided, that this cost is for 11 staff allocated to that young person, then this is wages. Simply put, that is wages. I would hate to see a headline coming from today that one child is costing the State €750,000. It is way more nuanced than that. We should give it the merit it deserves in that regard.
Can I ask about the status of the guardians ad litem? If this information is not forthcoming today I would appreciate a follow-up conversation. Where is the status of the guardian ad litem and what is happening? Does Tusla foresee any challenges for the independence of the role potentially? If I understand it correctly the role is accountable to the Minister.
Ms Lara Hynes:
I can do that. At the moment, the director of the guardian ad litem, GAL, national service has been appointed and some additional staff have also been appointed. The plan is for the service to commence operation next summer. The Deputy's second question was on the independence. Obviously that is a very key point. The set-up is being designed for the office at the moment and being put in place. Particular measures are being put in place to ensure that the guardians ad litem are independent in the operation of their own professional judgment. This is extremely important but the service will have the benefit of supporting them. They will have the benefit of working in an organisation where they can be supported by colleagues and by managers within the service.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I want to go back to the figure Deputy Farrelly just referenced when he said he would hate to see the headline that it is costing €750,000 per child. However, it is costing €750,000 per child. My difficulty is that when we look at its overall budget, this could be nearly 3% of Tusla's entire budget on 51 children.
The reason I raise this is because I know the huge pressures that Tusla, as an agency, is under in a whole range of other areas. I know the huge benefit of the work that it does in those areas. Any additional services that could be provided to them would be important. The idea is that, for 51 children in special care arrangements, because either there is not an appropriate foster care place or appropriate residential care, they are put in an arrangement in either an apartment, a hotel or a bed and breakfast, and that is costing a significant fee. I am saying I do not believe that investment is well placed for that child. I think Tusla would be far better investing that in helping the child in other ways because the immediate care need, which I appreciate has to be a paramount criterion-----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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It could be costing €400,000.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The comparison I am making is this. There were foster parents in Leinster House yesterday. They are getting in the region of €400 per week. I appreciate that different children will be deemed appropriate in different places. Those parents are saying that the amount of money they are receiving is insufficient for them to carry out their work. I know that Tusla, as an agency, is actively trying to recruit more foster parents. A conversation has to happen given that, on the one hand, a placement of any nature is costing such a significant amount of money, up to €900,000, and, on the other hand, foster care placements are costing €400 per week. If I were the chief executive of an agency and 3% of my entire budget was being spent on this model, I would expect the agency to review it to see if alternatives were available. I do not want to be unreasonable but it-----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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They are short-term stays.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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There could be children in these placements for a year or two years.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Surely, for those children, it would be better to be in a family fostering environment.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The question is why they are not in a family fostering environment.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Is it that there is no family available or that they would not be suitable?
Ms Kate Duggan:
They would not be suitable at that particular age with the particular complexity of needs they might have.
I want to be clear that, as an agency, we advocate all the time for increased investment in foster care, whether that is in terms of their allowance or additional supports to them. We have also advocated for support with the Department, the regulator and other State agencies that have responsibility for addiction and mental health, and for them to come together to look at different models of care that might be better value for money. I know the Department has set up an interagency group to look at that. Now, with the alternative care policy, I think there is a real opportunity.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Let me ask both bodies a very simple question. Do they believe that by increasing the supports for foster care parents, we would reduce our reliance on these communal settings and the costs that result?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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That is the point I am making.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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By increasing the payment for foster care parents, we would reduce the cost of and the reliance on residential care.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Does the Department believe that is the case?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The direct question I am putting to both bodies is whether they believe that by increasing supports for foster care parents, it will reduce the cost of and reliance on residential placements and communal placements. The answer on the Tusla side is very clearly “Yes”. That is my direct question to the Department.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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No. Let us be clear. The CEO said there was a limited placement in regard to special care arrangements, but she was very clear in relation to residential placements that it would have an impact.
Ms Lara Hynes:
There are a number of programme for Government commitments around foster care. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to increase the foster care allowance and ensure increases in the new initial placement payment, which was introduced this year. That is an extra week's payment that is given to foster carers when a new child is placed with them. There is also a commitment in the programme for Government to develop a pension solution for foster carers, although that is something that will have to be done on a cross-government basis. There is also a commitment to examine the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance eligibility issue.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Many TDs, when they were supporting those additions to the programme for Government, would have been doing it from the perspective of compassion for the foster parents. What is very clear from this discussion is that it is also an immediate value for money issue for the State.
Ms Kate Duggan:
It is not just about money in terms of the payment. It is the offer of therapeutic supports and the offer of wider support for mental health services and disability. When I say “value for money”, it is not that a direct increase in the allowance would lead to a direct reduction in residential.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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It is the allowance and supports. I accept that.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Both require resources. We have to move away from the reliance on these residential units towards a foster care system that works. The only people in the room who can do that are Tusla and the Department.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for staying with us. I will try to be reasonably brief. I want to go back to the issue of separated children. If I am right, for the year to date, 547 was the figure that Tusla gave us.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Projecting towards the end of the year, we are looking at over 700 if the trend continues - 729, if we do the maths proportionately. That is a very high number. Am I right that Ms Duggan said earlier that some of them claim to be minors, although they may not be, but certainly 20% or so would be under 16?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Would we have an approximate figure for that? It is important.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What I am trying to get at is those under 16 who are presenting are children. Can Ms Duggan explain how that happens? What is the typical route to being here?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I mean to get to Ireland.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Children travelling unaccompanied.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Based on those numbers, it is reasonable to say that over 100 children will travel to Ireland unaccompanied this year.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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A percentage of 10% is 70 children who will travel to Ireland and present unaccompanied. I think it is an extraordinary number. If Ms Duggan could clarify that at a later point, it would be great.
I am hopping topics here. On the issue of foster carers, I support the calls to improve their terms and conditions. One of the issues they raised during the week when they were here was the issue of the means test. The foster payment is apparently subject to a means test for things like the back-to-school allowance. I think there are easy wins in terms of trying to give something back to foster families. I would strongly argue that the Department needs to look at those issues.
I will not necessarily go through what Deputy McAuliffe went through in terms of savings and so on. However, that type of setting is better, and it is better for children to be in a family foster home. We must find a way to increase the number of families participating.
It is not for financial reward; it is purely to deal with the cost of living, which as we know, has increased significantly. I hope the Department would take note of that, if possible.
On the upcoming budget, I will go back to Tusla if I may. I note the Children's Rights Alliance has indicated that Tusla should be getting a €200 million increase in budget. Would Ms Duggan like to comment on that?
Ms Kate Duggan:
We are in ongoing engagement with the Department at the moment. As the Deputy knows, our job is to set out our existing level of spend for this year and our projected forecast for next year, both in terms of meeting current expenditure into 2026 and building in the normal things we have to do around pay, income, pensions and all of that. We are forecasting based on the trend, as the Deputy just said, of an increase in the number of separated children seeking international protection. We have put forward all the additional resources we would like to see. We would like to be able to respond in the right place at the right time as quickly as possible to every child who comes to us for our services. Considering there has been such an increase in the demand for our services, increased investment is necessary to meet this need. We have also looked for additional funding for therapeutic supports for children with very complex needs and therapeutic supports for children in foster care.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Does Ms Duggan think that is a fair estimate of the additional resources that would be required to fulfil Tusla's obligation?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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To build and fulfil obligations in the way the witnesses would like. Earlier, Ms Duggan mentioned getting calls to Garda stations at night. It is important to remember how much of Tusla's work is carried out after hours and at night and over weekends. How good is the service if a Garda station calls Tusla in the middle of the night with an issue with a child? Is it quite responsive in those instances?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I think so. We have a national out-of-hours service, which is our single point of contact in terms of being responsive. We have an out-of-hours service in just over 65% of the country where social workers will go out and attend with gardaí. In other parts of the country, we are in the final discussions and negotiations on what the out-of-hours service should look like. It is a bit more complex where there is a large geographical area, but we have a full out-of-hours-service system, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. We just want to make sure that we expand this in some of the more rural geographical locations to make sure there is a social worker present with gardaí as quickly as possible. Certainly for all of the Dublin regions and urban regions, that is in place.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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"Detained" is the wrong word, but what is the situation with children being kept in Garda stations waiting for Tusla or a social worker? That would not be for a prolonged period, generally speaking. Is that correct?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay that is perfect. I thank Ms Duggan.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I have a number of questions. I want to return to the issue of the special emergency arrangements. Ms Duggan referred to the length of time that children stay in this accommodation. In some cases, it is for a day or two. Currently, of the 51 children, what is the longest time a child has been in there?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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What is the average amount of time spent by a child in this arrangement?
Ms Kate Duggan:
Seven of them have been in this arrangement for less than a month, and 33 of them have been in this arrangement for one to six months. That would be 40. The one who has been in the arrangement for three years would bring the number to 41. Nine of them would be kind of in between, up from one month. That changes in terms of the duration. I have with me a document that sets out all of that every week for us. I am happy to share that with the committee. It shows the providers and the costs and we submit that on a weekly basis.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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So that is live. Can we get that data retrospectively for the last five years?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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It would be great if we could get that data. For those children, what is the path out of the special emergency accommodation? Ms Duggan mentioned that a lot of these cases are complex. There may be a need for one child to be in single occupancy. What is the route out for children?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Did the two children who went into a residential placement go into a single-occupancy residential placement?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Ms Duggan might be able to get that information for us because of the interest in this matter. She mentioned one of the key reasons why many of these children are in there. I am interested to see where they actually move to when they move out. How many single-occupancy placements does Tusla have?
Ms Kate Duggan:
It is important to say some of that is directed by the court. Anybody in care is under the direction of the court. Sometimes the court will direct, based on the information presented to it, that a young person needs a single-occupancy placement. Sometimes, it will be professionally directed as being in the best interests of the child.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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It is then up to Tusla to determine where the placement is, whether it is utilising the special emergency arrangements or whether it is voluntary or statutory. That is entirely up to Tusla. I suggest that the availability of that accommodation is the determining factor in where the child goes. That is the issue. It is not about the complexity of the case; it is about the availability of residential accommodation. For every social worker, every case is complex. It is probably more complex for them when they do not know where the child is going.
Ms Kate Duggan:
I also want to say, in terms of the committee that has oversight over this, that as part of our digital transformation we now have a bed-occupancy system. With this system we can look, on any night, at our bed occupancy across statutory, community and voluntary, and private providers. This illustrates the progress we have made with systems of oversight and the use of the totality of the resources available to us.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I want to ask about the due diligence process for using private providers. Recently there have been some quite concerning headlines about very serious levels of fraudulent activity in this sector. What is the process for appointing these private providers? I think currently there are 14 private companies.
Ms Kate Duggan:
Mr. Mone and Ms Mannion might want to come in on this to give information. We have a central compliance unit set up. We have taken it all in-house under Ms Mannion's team. It checks the qualifications, vetting and references of any of the staff employed by a third party. From an oversight perspective, they have to register with the team that we have in place and the team goes through all of their financial-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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How long has this information-checking process been in place?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I do not want to name the private companies that have been before the courts on very serious issues. Would some of those issues pre-date 2022?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There are concerns that the director of one of these companies had been convicted of fraud in the UK. As I said, he was the director of one of these companies and we can see the considerable amounts of money. In terms of background checks, how does something like that escape? That is one of the individuals who has been convicted recently as well. How does something like that slip through the net?
Mr. Pat Smyth:
There is no doubt at the moment that all those things have fed into processes we have and ensuring we can strengthen those processes. Obviously, in a child protection scenario, there are greater demands for background checks for different people. That information was not known when people sought and searched for it at the time of the appointment of those companies. It was information that I am not aware was available to people. Part of the challenge is that unless he was disqualified from being a director in Ireland, there is a very serious challenge for any organisation to not employ that company on that basis, even if they knew. However, we have changed-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Of the companies that have been blacklisted, have any of those been re-engaged by Tusla?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I know there are two but no more?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Moving on, I want to touch on the external agencies. Tusla's accounts show significant expenditure, more than €7 million, to Daughters of Charity Child and Family Service CLG and more than €12 million to Barnardos. Will the witnesses clearly outline what services are provided in return for this funding?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Does it carry out child welfare assessments on behalf of Tusla?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Not for child protection, okay.
Mr. Gerry Hone:
That is it. It works hand-in-hand with our intake service on that. There is oversight of that in place. Barnardos is one of our key partners for youth services and family support services, and it has a project for support for advocacy for parents of children in care, which is a key project it runs and which we fund. We have a national service level agreement with Barnardos, but it is involved locally and out in the regions, providing support services to young people and families. That is really about family support and keeping families together as well as youth support. It is very key for maintaining family units and keeping them together, preventing the need for young people to come into care. It is subject to local service level agreements for the local services it provides and our family support staff have oversight of those agreements locally. They visit and check those services regularly.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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In terms of the initial assessment, Mr. Hone is saying Barnardos does not carry it out. Those assessments are carried out by Tusla.
Ms Kate Duggan:
No, not all of them. There are some programmes around the country, so that is where there is variance. I know of one where Barnardos has a service level agreement where it has social workers employed and it carries out some child protection and welfare assessment. There is variance, so while it is a national contract, there are local regions.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Are those initial assessments carried out by qualified social workers?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Obviously, these are statutory assessments. Under what legal basis do they carry them out?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Is there a legal basis for that?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There have been concerns expressed about staff qualifications. Within Tusla itself, there are documented issues of unqualified staff handling serious cases. To give an example, the HIQA inspection in Dublin South-Central in 2025 reported that social care staff were inappropriately allocated to complex child protection cases. Social care staff who spoke to inspectors expressed significant concern about performing the duties of a social worker without adequate training. They also said their caseload could be unmanageable at times. How extensive is that? Is that concerning? Does that issue also occur in some of those external agencies?
Ms Kate Duggan:
Mr. Hone and Ms Mannion will be better placed to talk to the detail of it but, certainly, we have worked very hard within the agency to have a case allocation framework which looks at what are the roles and what are the statutory functions that can only be carried out by a social worker and what are the tasks or duties that can be undertaken as part of a multidisciplinary team. Earlier on, I talked about the fact that more than 60% of our referrals are referrals that need family support and involve supporting children welfare. A lot of their tasks and duties can be undertaken by a social care leader or worker.
What HIQA talked to were the systems of governance and oversight that need to be in place because it recognises that if we do not have the resources for every child to have an allocated social worker who needs one, we absolutely need an allocated professional under the governance of a social worker, working with that family, seeing that child and making sure that child is engaged with. Mr. Hone or Ms Mannion may be able to add more on the qualifications.
Ms Rosarii Mannion:
I will kick off and Mr. Hone will come in. I do not think the description "unqualified staff" accurately reflects what HIQA found. We are trying to make sure we have the most appropriate staff member assigned to the most appropriate task. That is really about skill mix. It is always done with the relevant service lead in terms of consultation and engagement, and there is appropriate supervision in place. What was reported there may have been misinterpreted.
Certainly, we need to get the best value from our resources. We have never had more social care workers. Of course we need more across the system. We are funded for more and we are actively trying to recruit more but we would never find ourselves in a situation where we would authorise unqualified staff to do this most complex of work.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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What is the deficit? What is the shortage of qualified social workers at the moment?
Ms Rosarii Mannion:
They are whole-time equivalents across the system. At any one time, we need approximately an additional 230 social workers. We also get caught up on the issue of what is a vacancy. Our definition of a vacancy is a post that is not filled in any capacity. There may be posts that are not filled specifically by social workers but they are filled by other qualified staff who are appropriate to the task in hand, whether that is family support, social care, etc. Our service managers keep an eye on that in terms of supervision.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Going back to the initial assessments, they can only be carried out by a social worker. Do we know how many children are still waiting for a social worker to be allocated for that initial assessment to be carried out?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Can I also get figures on how long they are waiting?
Mr. Gerry Hone:
That is easy to do. On the HIQA inspection you referenced, it was at a particular point in time when that particular area had particular struggles with recruiting sufficient staff. We have reported cases that were unallocated historically, where we said they were unallocated to a social worker but, at the same time, staff were visiting children. They were social care workers whom either we employ ourselves or who were from the community and voluntary sector.
What we report now is the sum total of the work we undertake with families in terms of all the staff that are going in. If a case is allocated to another professional, that gets recorded on our system, so we can report accurately where a social care worker is employed, and a social worker is not. Every social care worker who is engaged with a family from our child protection and welfare teams are under the supervision of a team leader who is social work qualified and CORU registered.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to return to the issue of the unaccompanied minors because it is an area of deep concern. Ms Duggan gave a number of figures. She can correct me if I am wrong. The current figure is 528.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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What is the expected cost this year for providing accommodation?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I do not expect the witnesses to have these figures, but can we get information going back to the commencement of the Ukrainian scheme?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The figures for international protection have probably gone up as well.
Ms Duggan made reference to children going missing. She can again correct me if I am wrong. Currently, there are 28. Is that the figure that have gone missing this year?
Ms Kate Duggan:
I want to make sure I am giving the Cathaoirleach the correct numbers. It is missing at that point in time. On 25 September, it is 28 for the Ukraine and separated children seeking international protection. It is eight in our mainstream children in care. In total, it is 36. A total of four young people from our mainstream setting are in contact with us. They are ringing and saying they do not want to go back. When this report was given to me on 25 September - I am conscious today is 2 October - four of those young people were missing from mainstream and one of those was missing for over one week. The rest were missing for one to three days.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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That is mainstream. What about Ukraine and IPAS?
Ms Kate Duggan:
Out of the 28 missing, one is between one and three days, one is between three and seven days, one is missing over one week and 25 are missing over two weeks. It is important to say that of that 25, 16 went missing in 2025, eight went missing in 2024 and one went missing in 2023. That is a cumulative figure.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Ms Duggan made reference to an average age earlier. What is the youngest age of someone who is currently missing in that cohort?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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If Ms Duggan could, that would be useful. I am conscious that HIQA did a piece of work earlier in the year. I do not want to summarise what it is was saying, but it was critical of the actions taken by Tusla in situations such as this where children who have presented as unaccompanied minors have gone missing. Will Ms Duggan comment on that HIQA work?
Ms Kate Duggan:
There are two things. We work closely with HIQA in making sure we understand and have an open and transparent relationship with it. First, HIQA had concerns that our separated children's service is not digitised. It is just to find it because it was a new service. We will be moving to digitise that early next year. It was the fact it was paper records, and we were manually counting and returning information. Second, HIQA felt in the mainstream setting when a child goes missing, there is an immediate contact with An Garda Síochána because we say this is child is 15 minutes or more missing. However, within the separated children service, we have recorded instances in files where young people will say to us, "This is not my final destination. I am going to meet my family in the UK", or "This is not my final destination. I am going to catch up with family somewhere else."
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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One of the findings in the HIQA report was that there was no communication between Tusla-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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-----and the Garda, but also outside agencies, such as in the UK or over the Border in the North.
Ms Kate Duggan:
Around a specific cohort of young people, their word was taken. HIQA is saying that no matter if they go missing and even if tell us they are going somewhere, until they are located in that location, we need to treat them in the same way as we would our mainstream population. That is something we have built into our processes to make sure that they are not taken at their word.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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HIQA officials looked at eight areas. Tusla failed in seven of those eight areas. Does Ms Duggan estimate that Tusla is compliant or are there processes in place now?
Ms Kate Duggan:
We are moving towards improving our compliance but we have to be honest about the demand that is coming. When I set out those types of numbers, we are a new service, and are still trying to staff that service at pace. HIQA will say we are responding to the greatest risks. However, in terms of becoming compliant with HIQA standards, it has to be a perfect standard. It has to be the perfect service in terms of documentation, oversight, supervision and our interagency collaboration. In 2023 and 2024, it was about reacting, responding, finding a place of safety and getting staff employed. It came quickly at us in the context of significant demand in the rest of the agency. We have certainly invested. We have received investment from the Department. We have brought that staff complement to well over 100 people now. There is certainly movement towards much better compliance.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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It is a deeply concerning area. There was a response to Deputy McAuliffe about unaccompanied minors coming through airports and ports. There is an obligation on the transport provider, whether it is the airlines or others, and engagement between Tusla, the Department of justice and the airlines. Does Tusla have any role in that with the airport authority or is that-----
Ms Pamela Benson:
We need to see changes. What would happen is the child will turn up at an airport, the guards would more often than not evoke a section 12, put the child into immediate safety and contact us. They would be given into our custody, and we would go from there. We would look to see if it is down the route of the unaccompanied minor or if the child is already known to our service, which sometimes happens. It only happened recently in an out-of-hours case when they were known to our service returning. It would depend on the route it would go down. However, there is a lot of engagement with the Department of justice as recently as a meeting yesterday about it with some of the staff in my office and the unaccompanied minors area within Tusla. We are progressing that.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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On that issue, the witnesses said earlier that there are 534 separated children in IPAS.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Ms Duggan said there is at least one child that has been missing under her definition since 2023 and another two or three in 2024. She was going back and forth about how the new system is that Tusla treats them like a child in a mainstream setting and do not take them for their word that they might be going over to the UK. I presume the kids are around 15- or 16-years-old.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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They are obviously not 18 because they would not be with the agency if they were.
Ms Kate Duggan:
They could be. That is when we do not have definitive ways to determine age. It is psychosocial by talking to them and looking at them. That is one of the most significant challenges facing our teams down there every day. They are having to make assessments in determining that someone is a child or an adult or looks like they are a child or an adult.
It is then to make sure that in applying the benefit, if we want no child in an IPAS centre, equally, we can have no adult in a children's centre. It is a very challenging-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That is not really your job.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Department of justice has the facilities, the capacity and the Internet to allow it to look through it.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Sorry, I did not mean it like that. It is Tusla's job to care for the child, but in terms of the interrogation of the presentation-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Tusla cannot carry out background reviews, and Interpol and-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I see that. It is a bit concerning, and I hear the point that there is a lot of nuance here because some of them could be adults. For most of them, the assumption is that they are going off to the UK. Have there been bad outcomes in terms of children who have gone missing from Tusla's system, namely the 538 children in special separation or whatever it is called? Is there a European-wide network of communication regarding children? Presumably there is a similar service or an equivalent to Tusla in the UK. Does Tusla have any kind of communication with it to share information? How does that work?
Ms Kate Duggan:
We have an operational engagement with the North of Ireland in terms of our equivalent team there. We obviously have our international social work services. We have somebody who is dedicated to international social work services. Again, in circumstances where any child could be taken to England or to Europe by family or friends, we have those links. Obviously, the reason we continue reporting this information every week is because when we report it live, it remains live with An Garda Síochána in its engagements with Interpol. We have had situations where young people have been found and identified. I can think of one situation in Europe. I certainly have not been made aware of a bad outcome. I will go to Mr. Hone in case there has been anything over the past couple of years.
Mr. Gerry Hone:
No, we have not had bad outcomes. What we are detecting more, and we are in close consultation with the Garda on this at senior level, is trafficking within the group. We had a cohort of children from Vietnam coming into the country this year> Trafficking was a significant factor in a good few of those cases. We have to be very careful, obviously, because it is easier for trafficking to occur in that vulnerable group. There are our cross-Border and international social services connections. We have got the new European legislation coming out in terms of the European pact, so there will be more consistency from one country to another and, hopefully, better communications built in as part of that to actually combat some of the vulnerabilities.
Ms Kate Duggan:
It is also important to say that when we became concerned about this, and I certainly became really concerned about this a couple of years ago, we partnered with MECPATHS, which is a really good organisation that is focused on human and child trafficking. It provides training, not just to our staff, staff we fund in the community and voluntary sector and private providers, but also out to wider industry, including hotels, shops and commercial entities to look to make sure that people are aware. We could not but be concerned about those 25 young people. We know the risk of human trafficking is greater when there is movement and global movement of people. It is that commitment to work with the Garda and internationally, but also to do that wider public awareness because this is a new concept for Ireland as a whole. That is so people understand and recognise, where they are concerned about anybody who may be a victim of exploitation or trafficking. The new national referral mechanism is being looked at too, which will also look more responsibilities on different State agencies in terms of all of those issues around trafficking and human trafficking.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Not to prolong the conversation, but I will raise the fear that children have been trafficked. The HIQA report found that safety planning was not routinely completed when a trafficking risk was identified for a child in eight cases where there were concerns about trafficking and exploitation. In one case where a child said they felt unsafe, no safety plans were in place to manage the risks. That is concerning. Are those risks and concerns addressed? It is a key concern that children are going missing who are potentially being trafficked, and being trafficked for sexual exploitation as well, which is deeply concerning. Not to extend the conversation, but are those key concerns now being addressed in processes?
Ms Kate Duggan:
When any of those HIQA reports bring a concern to us, it is about immediate implementation of the actions that are required to mitigate risk. In that case, and Mr. Hone can speak to this, HIQA has accepted our compliance plan and our action plan. That is reported to Mr. Hone in terms of compliance. It is a new service. It is a service that is going to take us a little longer to get to the standard we would want. Some of that is about that supply of professionally qualified social workers. It is not about the resourcing or the money but the supply of them to be able to undertake those duties.
Mr. Gerry Hone:
Ultimately, we want to integrate it into our mainstream services but because it is so new at the moment, we have to develop the expertise and the skills within it because of the particular nuances of that service. We are building capacity, safety and protection within it as we go.
It is also worth stating that the vast majority of the young people who present here are doing extremely well. They are out there engaged in education and in local communities and are doing extremely well. I do not know whether this was said, but private providers actually prefer to care for that cohort because they present less complex behaviours a lot of the time. They are doing well, they are here and they want to go to school and to get work. They want that. The vast majority do very well when they come to Ireland.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I thank everyone within Tusla for the work they do. It is challenging for everybody. Whether they are social workers or care workers, everyone has the same core objective for some of the most vulnerable within our State. It is critical that the public can trust social services. We need that and there is a need to demonstrate it. Hopefully, today's hearing will go some of the way towards that.
I thank the witnesses for coming. That concludes our engagement with Tusla, the Child and Family Agency. I thank Ms Kate Duggan and her officials for attending. I also thank Ms Lara Hynes and Mr. Andrew Patterson from the Department of Children, Disability and Equality for attending.
Is it agreed that the clerk seeks any follow-up information and carries out agreed actions arising from the meeting? Agreed.
We stand adjourned until 9.30 a.m. on Thursday, 9 October 2025, when we will meet with representatives from Beaumont Hospital, to discuss the its financial statements for 2023, and from the National Treatment Purchase Fund, to discuss its financial statements for 2024.