Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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105. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if resources continue to be made available to meet demands arising from children or teenagers who have been abandoned; if the structures in place are adequate to meet the requirements in terms of response and follow up; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43156/15]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I am pleased to inform the Deputy that the number of children coming into care has fallen over the past number of years. The most recent figures are outlined in the table. As these figures are released on an annual basis, validated figures for 2014 and 2015 are not yet available.

I wish to assure the Deputy that Tusla deals immediately with emergency cases, including for instance, if a child has been abandoned or is in immediate physical danger or at immediate risk of sexual abuse. Social work duty teams keep high priority cases under review by regularly checking to ascertain risk to the child, and where necessary will reprioritise the case.

I was pleased to be able to allocate significant extra resources to Tusla for 2016. The overall level of funding that I have provided will significantly strengthen Tusla's base funding level and will give the Agency greater capacity to respond to current risk and anticipated demand, addressing areas of currently unmet need during 2016. The 2016 gross funding allocation under Budget 2016 includes an allocation of €676 million for Tusla, representing an increase of €38 million over the 2015 allocation. This includes €662.4 million in current expenditure and €13.6 million in capital expenditure.

The additional resources are intended to alleviate service pressures in child welfare and protection services, in particular pressures being faced in the areas of unallocated cases, private residential and foster care and domestic, sexual and gender based violence services.

This level of provision addresses all of the key priorities identified by Tusla and considered to be achievable in 2016. The funding provision will give rise to a substantial recruitment programme involving up to 400 additional staff next year.