Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, report on the operation of the Child and Family Agency, Tusla, which was brought by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, to Cabinet has just been published. As we know, the report was initiated on foot of Tusla's catastrophic mishandling of allegations made against Garda whistleblower, Maurice McCabe. I understand the report is damning and outlines dysfunction and deficiencies within Tusla in the areas of staffing, systems, reporting and governance. I understand it highlights the alarming reality that Tusla has serious difficulties in recruiting and retaining specialist staff, in particular, social workers. The report also points to resourcing problems and the inability of Tusla to respond appropriately to cases of alleged or suspected child abuse. The unacceptable result of this catalogue of failure is that the Child and Family Agency is not adequately protecting children at ongoing risk. This means that children are knowingly being left in danger.

The Taoiseach may recall that when I raised the horrific Galway foster home rape case with him in April, I said the State's failure of children was a damning indictment on our political system. I also said it would not be long before we would be back here to discuss yet another failure, and here we are. There are children at increased risk today due to the culture of dysfunction in Tusla. This has been compounded by the Government's failure to act and properly resource a responsive and effective Child and Family Agency. It is clear that we need to see a radical step change when it comes to recruiting and retaining social workers. In January last, the Committee of Public Accounts highlighted the high staff turnover rates at Tusla. Despite hiring 250 new staff, the net gain was only 18 due to the high numbers of staff leaving the agency.

This is an issue we have raised time and again with the Minister. In May we learned that over 4,000 children referred to Tusla were waiting to be allocated a social worker. We need to see dramatic improvements, but we also need to see accountability for the litany of failures contained in today's report. In order to change the culture in Tusla there first has to be accountability. All of this is happening on the Taoiseach's watch. The diagnosis is clear: Tusla, as it stands, is not fit for purpose and what we now need are solutions to ensure the children at risk will be properly protected. What does the Taoiseach plan to do to address the chronic shortage of social workers in the system? The HIQA report published today was commissioned a year ago. The Government and all of us knew at that stage that there were very big problems. We also know that a year is a very long time in the life of a vulnerable child. What measures were taken in the interim to minimise the danger to children at ongoing risk?

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