Groups providing family support, rape crisis, domestic violence, and marriage counselling services all face further funding cuts, Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, has warned.

The Government has been warned that it faces “a crisis a year” unless it starts ploughing additional funds into the cash-strapped Child and Family Agency, Tusla.

The State’s Child and Family Agency has warned that it will need a further €17m in funding to address shortcomings in its frontline social services.

The head of Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, said he is “sympathetic” to points of concern raised by social workers in relation to proposed procedures for dealing with allegations of child abuse and neglect.

At least 127 children have been identified as requiring “urgent attention” following an emergency review by the Child and Family Agency of case files recently discovered in Laois and Offaly.

The Government has rejected claims that State funding for marriage preparation courses provided by the Catholic support agency Accord was withdrawn because of the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage.

A social worker in the midlands employed by the Child and Family Agency, Tusla, has been put on administrative leave in the fallout from the “discovery” of hundreds of “unidentified” child protection files in the Laois/Offaly area.

A group of social workers has warned the child and family agency’s chief executive that the lack of services to meet the needs of children and families “will place children at risk”.

Noel Baker’s article on the Child and Family Agency/TUSLA’s “unsustainable” legal spend, (Irish Examiner, September 26) quoted Eibhlín Byrne, executive manager of TUSLA: “the current system in which we operate is broken, and increasingly adversarial”.

The new Child and Family Agency needs more money to fulfil its brief and is being weighed down by "unsustainable" legal spending, including historical court bills.

The overseas placement of Irish children will continue, writes Noel Baker. It’s time to ensure the ‘before’ and ‘after’ services deliver.

The head of the new Child and Family Agency (CFA) has said he believes all, bar the most serious crimes, should be wiped from a young person’s criminal record when they turn 18.

The HSE is putting vulnerable teens who have committed no crime at serious risk by locking them up for 12 hours a day alongside others who have a history of arson and substance abuse.

WHAT do Gordon Jeyes and Joe Schmidt have in common? You may not have heard of Gordon Jeyes, although you will. Neither Jeyes nor Schmidt is Irish, but both are doing jobs that matter. It’s important to all of us that they both win.

Minor welfare concerns are building up to a risk of abuse in some childcare situations because of a shortage of social workers.

The head of the HSE’s Children and Family Services has indicated that some information heard in court resulting in a Roma girl being taken into care on Monday may be made available to an investigation by the Children’s Ombudsman.

On average, more than one child in care is injured every day, and more than 56% of those injuries require hospital treatment. These figures form part of a very disturbing picture.

A high-support unit for children in care is to close down next month after the inspection watchdog, the Health and Information Quality Authority (Hiqa), said it was a serious fire risk and that staff were unable to control bullying behaviour.

Education standards have been assessed at just 15 of the 4,300 childcare centres paid more than €600m to provide a free pre-school year since 2010.

The man in charge of child services in the HSE has called for further reform in the area of deciding child access in Ireland.

The HSE pays approximately €18m a year on legal representation in cases involving children, a sum its national director of children and family services has said may be unnecessary.

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.

Care workers and HSE staff who “blatantly” failed vulnerable young children under their care could face criminal charges.

State faces legal action over damning HSE report

* Children’s Rights Alliance: While people enjoyed the trappings of the Celtic Tiger, children died in the care of the state, the CRA said.

A radical root-and-branch reform of the child protection system in Ireland has been recommended in a damning inquiry in to child deaths in care.

President Michael D Higgins has welcomed the upcoming referendum on children’s rights, claiming it was a chance “to set down a marker once and for all”.

THE national director for children and family services in the HSE is to look for new managers in areas to guarantee “straight line” communication on child welfare issues.

HEALTH Minister James Reilly said he agreed that a cultural change is needed within the Heath Service Executive (HSE) after the organisation’s head of child and family services described it as appalling and likened its accountability structures to those of the Catholic Church.

The Opposition are calling on the Children's Minister Frances Fitzgerald to outline how the new legislation on reporting child sex abuse allegations will impact on resources.

THE HSE hopes to have completed a capacity review of some of its services for children in care by the summer, it emerged yesterday.

THE HSE’s new child services supremo has said the agency’s crisis intervention skills “lacked credibility” and also questioned whether current child death reviews were too broad.

The owner of household products group Jeyes – maker of Wet Ones wipes and Bloo toilet cleaner – was today said to be eyeing a possible sale worth £150m (€219m).