Tusla chief said agency had found 'no child protection concerns' around disappearance of Daniel Aruebose

Daniel Aruebose went missing sometime in 2021. His skeletal remains were discovered buried in Donabate, north Co Dublin, last month. Picture: An Garda Siochana

The head of child and family agency Tusla has said despite the “harrowing” case of missing child Daniel Aruebose, the organisation had uncovered “no child protection concerns” regarding his disappearance.

Addressing the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the agency’s chief executive Kate Duggan said she would “absolutely support” the publication of Tusla’s internal inquiry reports regarding Daniel’s disappearance if it would not prejudice ongoing Garda investigations.

“What we’ve all seen and heard is absolutely harrowing. I came out in public to say that we did have contact with Daniel and his family. We were the agency who went to An Garda Síochána with information in relation to concerns about Daniel’s wellbeing,” Ms Duggan said.

“I can confirm that we had no concerns of child protection around Daniel, he was not open to a child protection service,” she said.

Three-year-old Daniel went missing sometime in 2021. His skeletal remains were discovered buried in Donabate, north Co Dublin, last month.

At PAC, Ms Duggan said the cases of Daniel and fellow missing Louth child Kyran Durnin “are very different”, with the common thread between the two being both children disappeared during the covid-19 pandemic lockdowns.

Asked whether a planned review of 42,000 child welfare cases closed by Tusla during the pandemic would have happened without the high-profile cases of Daniel and Kyran coming to light, Ms Duggan replied: “If I’m quite honest with you, I don’t think [so]”.

She said the ongoing “global movement or the internal movement of people” makes tracking children more problematic, meaning  the solution is “about having the best system in place” so every child has a PPS number to aid in establishing their location and wellbeing.

Of the pending welfare check review, Ms Duggan said she thought "the public now sees with two cases of concern where the common factor was the closure of services”, where those children were not registered at school, and reviewing all those cases “is the right thing to do”.

Complaint settlements

Separately, the committee heard Tusla had incurred costs totalling at least €1.3m regarding complaints made by four individuals from 2017, a settlement that should have been specifically approved by the Department of Public Expenditure but was not.

Comptroller & Auditor General Seamus McCarthy told the committee further costs on Tusla’s side for those cases amounted to €1.6m — bringing the total liability to date to close to €3m — including an independent investigation into the matter, which cost €416,000 — the findings of which were subsequently quashed by order of the High Court.

Ms Duggan said when she took over as head of Tusla in September 2023, the settlement of those four cases was her “absolute priority” given if they had been heard in court, it was practically certain Tusla would have lost.

The committee heard the four cases, which relate to service matters and were not child protection issues, were moved to mediation the day before the trial was due to begin.

Ms Duggan said she had approved one settlement of €49,999, as that had been the maximum amount she could greenlight without receiving the go-ahead from the Department of Public Expenditure, despite that individual having also incurred legal costs of €870,000, which were paid by the agency.