The Minister for Children must commission an independent review of Tusla after it was found that suspected cases of child abuse were not referred to Garda\u00ed for over three months, and in some cases not referred at all, according to Social Democrats children spokesperson Aidan Farrelly.<\/p>\n
Deputy Farrelly said:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many damning reports is it going to take before we see action taken to ensure that children in care are not in harm\u2019s way? What good is it to those children if HIQA is nothing more than a report-writing body which results in no learning by Tusla, the Government and its Minister for Children?<\/p>\n
\u201cThese aren’t numbers, these are real children and young people, who, for one reason or another, have been referred to Tusla. Yet, when suspected cases of child abuse are occurring, there’s no timely follow-up or mandatory reporting at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat’s it going to take to spur the Minister into action? Today\u2019s report is damning, no matter what Tusla says about overall compliance. It justifies our concerns about Tusla’s ability to deal with complicated referrals in any sort of manner that would give us confidence that the wellbeing of our most vulnerable children is paramount in all that the agency does.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo think that the majority of initial referrals were dealt with, but subsequent actions such as referrals to the Garda\u00ed, social workers and multi-disciplinary teams took in some cases over three months is blatantly unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis report only covers North Galway and is based on a small sample – these shortcomings could be even more widespread than HIQA has shown. What about other areas outside of Galway? Countless children could be facing the same risks around the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve raised legitimate concerns about Tusla’s ability to manage its reform programme – we’re starting to see the cracks in that, wherein children and young people\u2019s cases are not being acted upon. These concerns are now evidence-based.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know what threshold must be passed before the Government and this Minister takes action. I’m starting to run out of words to describe my concern as a youth worker, as a dad, and as a public representative, that the body which is tasked with ensuring every child in this State is safe and secure is getting its fundamental basics so wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cMinister for Children Norma Foley must finally take this situation into hand and commission an independent review of Tusla so that these shortcomings can be identified and corrected. Children must not be left in harm\u2019s way.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 16th, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Minister for Children must commission an independent review of Tusla after it was found that suspected cases of child abuse were not referred to Garda\u00ed for over three months, and in some cases not referred at all, according to Social Democrats children spokesperson Aidan Farrelly. Deputy Farrelly said: \u201cHow many damning reports is it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,540,7,693],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aidan-farrelly","category-children","category-press-release","category-tusla"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n