Adoption campaigners have labelled Tusla ‘worse than nuns’ saying that information that was routinely released is now routinely being withheld, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) is facing a possible investigation and potential €1m fines over the mandatory requirement to hold a public services card in order to access the new National Childcare Scheme.

An alternative method for applying for the new National Childcare Scheme online, other than the public services card, was dramatically dropped on the advice of a State body with responsibility for the card’s expansion in January 2018.

The vast majority of the almost 15,000 adopted people and natural parents on the national adoption tracing register will have to reapply to be added to the Government’s planned new register.

Social media has changed the landscape in terms of adopted people tracing their birth relatives to such an extent that service providers here "are out of step with the reality".

Minister intervenes over funding crisis facing street project to tackle drugs and gangs issue

An online service matching parents with suitable child minders has been set up. But many mums and dads are not properly briefing them on what do in emergencies, writes Arlene Harris.

Social workers are to meet with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs next week, because social work students are struggling to get work placements. This struggle is due to a lack of formal arrangements.

The report will be based on the results of a scoping exercise announced in May last year following the discovery by Tusla of 126 cases in which births were illegally registered between 1946 and 1969 in the records of St Patrick’s Guild.

It comes as a number of prominent independent politicians introduced a motion in the Dáil calling for an immediate inquiry and for immediate redress to be offered to survivors of Mother and Baby Homes.

A number of prominent politicians have called on the Government to establish an immediate State inquiry into forced and illegal adoption.

Children's minister Katherine Zappone has been accused of "completely misrepresenting" the recommendations of the Collaborative Forum on Mother and Baby Homes by offering to amend the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill.

The scoping exercise into illegal birth registrations is restricted to only examining records for specific markers which might indicate illegality.

The long-delayed report into illegal birth registrations will be submitted to children's minister Katherine Zappone before Easter.

Despite protesting otherwise, the State knew about the practice of illegal adoption for years, with Tressa Reeves gathering evidence of her son’s illegal registration in 1997 and the authorities informed in 2001, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

“The Authority notified the DPP in 2002, and An Garda Síochána in 2003, of a case of an alleged illegal birth registration"

Finally there will be a sample audit of all records held by the State, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

Niall Muldoon looks at child protection in other jurisdictions and learns how it is vital to unify activities between law enforcement and social work

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) have refused to say whether all the infant burials discovered in unmarked graves in a Cork city cemetery will be investigated.

More than €20,000 was spent on carpet for the office of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA).

The child and family agency, Tusla, is completing a widescale audit of the tens of thousands of projects and services that it funds across the country.

Two Government departments had access to a 2012 report on “shocking” levels of infant deaths at Bessborough Mother and Baby home — despite initial claims that it did not have the report.

A Government TD says a national fund should be in place to ensure no child is unable to fully access the free year of pre-school because of a disability.

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has no record of how many pupils with disabilities take up options to extend or delay their use of Government-funded pre-schooling.

The new Child and Family Agency to be set up next year will incorporate a range of services, including public health nurses and truancy officers, although its budget has yet to be decided.