Some of the staff involved in the care of the intellectually disabled woman known as Grace are still employed by the Child and Family Agency, Tusla, it has emerged.

Five reports into the deaths of children known to the care services have found shortcomings in how the cases were dealt with.

Tusla says it will address deficits in a residential children’s care home in which absences from care were rampant and inspectors voiced concerns over inappropriate sexual behaviour, phone access, and alcohol and drug use.

Some social care workers in Ireland have needed plastic surgery, and to have plates and pins inserted into their bodies, as a result of violence in their workplace.

Serious risks to children remained at a Tusla Midlands service a year after it was excoriated for not knowing if it had acted on 900 cases of at-risk children notified to it by gardaí.

Tusla and the HSE will give contradictory accounts of how a teenager with an intellectual disability came to be left with a foster carer, accused of sex abuse, for up to 21 months after children in the foster home were removed for their safety.

A judge in Fort Worth, Texas, who halted an execution because the inmate was mentally ill has agreed to force the man to take anti-psychotic medication so he can be put to death.