TUSLA’S OUT-OF-hours service is still “routinely” placing children in “inappropriate” settings overnight with agency staff looking after them. 

An inspection of the service by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) found that it lacks governance and management structures, and that it does not have a clear “purpose and function”. 

The authority also found that the out-of-hours service, which provides emergency care to children when mainstream Tusla services are closed on evenings and weekends, is not providing an equal service to children in all parts of the country. 

That means that children who need emergency child protective and welfare services in some counties are being less well-supported than others. 

In its report HIQA said that children outside of Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow are being supported by on-call social workers, and that due to delays and resourcing pressures some children in emergency placements have had “limited in-person’ interactions with a social worker. 

“The service was not adequately resourced with sufficient emergency care placements for children, and it routinely placed children in inappropriate, unregulated care arrangements with agency staff overnight,” inspectors found. 

The out of hours service of the child and family agency has now submitted a compliance plan to HIQA to outline how it will meet standards in future. 

Staff who spoke to HIQA inspectors expressed their concerns that hotel rooms continue to be used as ‘immediate places of safety’ for children who need emergency accommodation. 

They voiced concerns about the impact on children’s welfare from being placed in an unregulated setting rather than being in a secure residential home. 

Inspectors found that the need to liaise with hotels “daily” was also taking staff aware from their duties and general work. 

HIQA inspectors noted that Tusla management aims to cease using these accommodation arrangements, but that they cannot do so currently because of the lack of secure residential care settings for children. 

The report notes that one of the risks associated with placing children in hotel rooms is an increase in the likelihood of these children going missing from care. 

Inspectors noted that governance issues, including the way children’s cases are tracked and how data is managed, were identified in a previous inspection and have still not been remedied. 

The report also noted that staff working in the out-of-hours service are committed to keeping children safe. 

“Inspectors saw examples of good quality out-of-hours safeguarding work with children,” it says.