Tusla CEO describes RTÉ Primetime children in care programme as 'completely unacceptable'

Vivienne Clarke

Kate Duggan, the chief executive of Tusla, has defended the service and said that every child in the care of the state deserved to feel supported by all the services of the state and where that had not happened it was “completely unacceptable.”

Responding to an RTÉ Primetime programme about the use of unregulated facilities for children in care, Duggan told RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland, “With the support of our Minister and Department, we will, in the months ahead, continue to absolutely reduce our reliance on these arrangements.”

The television programme had been “very distressing”, she said.

“I think the young people that we heard from represent certainly a lived experience of young people today in the care of the state that all of us are very concerned about.

"We absolutely know that every child who is in state care deserves to feel supported by all services of the state, and where that hasn't happened, it is completely unacceptable.”

The experiences in the programme had been those of a small number of vulnerable young people, she said.

“The vast majority of children in our care, the almost 6,000 children in our care, they are receiving very good services, living in foster care with loving foster care families, living in registered centres where they're cared for by staff, they're engaged in education, and they're doing very well.

“But we absolutely have to do better by this group of young people who have very vulnerable and complex needs, and certainly for me, I want every young person that needs a bed in special care to be able to get that bed," she said.

“I want every young person to be able to be accommodated in a registered care placement, and while we are making significant progress in achieving that, we haven't yet been able to provide that to every young person.”

Duggan said that the Department of Children, Disability and Equality is now working on a promise to look at an alternative care strategy, to consider how the state comes together to support those children and young people better.

When asked about the case of a fake reference, Duggan said there were no staff using fake references working in a special emergency arrangement.

“A provider became aware of an internal issue within their company. They notified us immediately of that. We were able to check, and we were able to make sure that no staff member with a forged reference was using and providing services on behalf of Tusla."

The chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance, Tanya Ward, has said that the state has been failing children in the care system for 40 years.

“We’re just doing enough as a country to help families hold on to their children,” she told RTÉ radio’s Today with David McCullagh show.

It was frustrating that parents and grandparents, “and other people in their lives”, who potentially could care for them were not helped to do so, she added.

“There aren't enough by way of addiction services, mental health services, kinship supports. But alongside that, I also know is that the care system has been very successful for the majority of children who are in foster care and engaged in education. And I just wish that we could zone in and focus on these very vulnerable young people who have really significant needs.”

Ward was responding to a report on RTÉ’s Primetime about the failings of the care system for children with complex needs.

“We've been failing this group of young people now for about 40 years. And I think that with 2026, we have to see a real change in how we respond to young people with complex needs.”

While Tusla may claim that the majority of children in care have a positive experience, it was a “tale of two halves”.

“You see lots of really positive work taking place. And on the other side, what you can see is in some parts of the country where there are social work shortages, what you find is children aren't getting assessments quick enough, or maybe they're not getting access to family support services or addiction services for their parents or maybe mental health services for their families as well.

“But what you can also see is when children have been very traumatised, and this is the problem with, I suppose, our care system, we have children who have experienced sometimes a lot of neglect. And some of that has accumulated, particularly because of Covid because our services were effectively closed for two years and the child protection system didn't have eyes and ears.

“And what we're seeing is a demand surge of very complex cases coming through. It's very difficult because Tusla does not have a lot of high support units in place at all. And these problems are years in the making.”

Meanwhile, Monica Hynds, a Guardian ad Litem with children’s charity Barnardos, has called on Tusla and the government to cease using unregulated placements for children in care and to immediately implement a plan for children with complex needs.

Hynds was responding to the report on RTÉ Primetime, which highlighted the number of children who continue to be placed in unregulated care, which costs €2,000 per child per week.

Unregulated placements were introduced a number of years ago as a temporary measure, she explained to RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

“What we are seeing now is protracted use of them, and it's really, really disappointing, grossly disappointing for those young people and for the young people who are coming after them who can end up in those arrangements for quite some time as well.

“We are calling for the cessation of these and we have been consistently calling for these. They're not regulated at all because they're illegal," she said.

"So in order to be regulated, you have to have been approved by Hiqa and you have to meet certain standards.”

Hynds pointed out that the people who work in the unregulated placements are vetted, but they were not qualified and there had been at least one allegation where staff falsified references.

“What we want to see is a government-led approach that sees a timed and action-driven plan that sees the elimination of these over a period of time.

“The government knows that they're unregulated and that they're illegal, and they still continue to this day.”

“You have to invest in the system that's around. There is no silver bullet to this. There is no easy one answer to this. You have to invest in the system around this. And that starts with trying to reduce the number of children who are coming into care.”