Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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267. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if the office for historical cases has been set up in Tusla; the number of persons working in that department; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26168/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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A historical or retrospective disclosure is where an adult discloses abuse experienced in childhood. I understand that the overwhelming majority of such disclosures are about sexual abuse.

I can advise the Deputy that the management of all referrals including retrospective/historical cases occurs at Area level. Tusla has advised me that a service improvement plan has been put in place to deal with these outstanding cases. In the first instance, specialist teams are working on high priority cases. Medium and low priority cases will be assessed by social workers who will be drawn from non-child protection teams, on a project basis, to deal with this work. The sections of Tusla they will be drawn from include adoption, quality assurance and training.

There is no plan to establish such an office, as described by the Deputy, in Tusla. Each retrospective case referred to Tusla will be screened by the Area Duty Team who will initially establish if there are any known child protection concerns and the Area will respond thereafter, as appropriate, to the referral.