Tusla is set to receive more than 100,000 referrals this year for the first time, with calls for increased funding for the agency in the coming budget to cope with “ever-increasing demand”.
A Children’s Rights Alliance (CRA) conference on child protection and the care system heard referrals have more than doubled since the agency’s establishment in 2014, from about 46,000.
Kate Duggan, Tusla chief executive, said each of the 100,000 referrals involve a “real concern about a child or a young person.”
The rise comes alongside a 500 per cent increase in the number of separated children seeking international protection who require support and accommodation from Tusla, she said.
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The agency saw an increase of more than €145 million in funding last year, primarily in response to that rise in separated children. .
However, “significant investment” in child-protection and welfare frontline services, residential care facilities and the recruitment of social workers is required, Ms Duggan said.
While 88 per cent of the 5,780 children in State care are currently accommodated in foster arrangements, the agency is about 200 residential care beds short, she said. That is alongside a deficit of between 250 and 300 social workers needed to meet demand.
Andrea Reilly, who was in foster care from birth until the age of 18, said she “felt like a file being passed around, rather than a human being” due to a “constant turnover” of social workers.
“It wasn’t that I had people who didn’t care, but it’s a system that’s overloaded and a crisis-led approach has taken over. I remember from a young age that social workers were drowning from caseloads. If you weren’t on fire, you weren’t seen as a priority,” she said.
“If you’re constantly having to start over with new people, it can really affect your self-esteem,” she said, adding that she felt like a “passed-around file”.
Alongside better working conditions for social workers, the 22-year-old from Co Tipperary called for stronger supports for foster carers. Hers, a woman named Geraldine, no longer fosters any more.
“She went through a lot over the years in terms of not feeling supported or really empowered by Tusla,” she said.
The CRA has called for additional funding of €50 million for Tusla in Budget 2026, with chief executive Tanya Ward saying the agency never got the investment it needed in its early years.
Asked after the conference about the request for additional funding, Minister for Children Norma Foley said there had been a “significant uplift” for Tusla in the last two budgets, bringing its funding to €1.3 billion.
“We will seek, every year, to do more in that space,” she said.
Separately, Ms Duggan said she was not aware of any children being wrongfully taken into care as a result of Tusla staff cloning information between siblings.
The practice was flagged following a Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) review of services in the midlands with Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín highlighting concerns that false information on some files could lead to children being “wrongly or unnecessarily taken into care”.
Ms Duggan said concerns around duplication of information have been dealt with by the agency.
“Certainly, I am not aware of any case where there has been a child inadvertently taken into care,” she said, adding that a review is ongoing.
“Where we receive a report from Hiqa and where there are any findings in relation to that, we identify it as an opportunity for either mitigating a risk or learning from it.”
