'Better services to protect children from sexual abuse needed'

The One in Four group says better out-of-hours social services are needed to protect young people from child sexual abuse.

The group says the ongoing recruitment freeze in the HSE means social workers are coming under increasing pressure to deal with individual cases.

Executive Director of One in Four, Meave Lewis, has said it is getting more and more difficult for people to access out of hours social services.

Ms Lewis said: "It is extremely difficult at times to make a complaint about even a suspicion of sexual abuse to the HSE."

"Social workers are under enormous pressure and very often are only dealing with absolute crisis cases."