Over 180 welfare concerns about children in foster care in Mid-West reported to Tusla

Child and Family Agency recorded 183 child protection and welfare concerns relating to 67 children in foster care in Limerick, Clare, and North Tipperary

Hiqa published an inspection of Tulsa's foster care service in the Mid-West this week.

Tusla received more than 180 child protection and welfare concerns relating to children in foster care in Limerick, Clare, and North Tipperary in the 12 months before last September.

The Child and Family Agency recorded 183 child protection and welfare concerns relating to 67 children in foster care in the Mid-West within a 12-month period.

It also received two allegations against foster carers, both of which were open at the time of an inspection by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) carried out in September.

The watchdog published an inspection of Tulsa's foster care service in the Mid-West this week.

At the time of the inspection, 41 of the reported child protection and welfare concerns remained “open”, and were “at various stages of screening, preliminary enquiry, initial assessment and safety planning”. 

The desktop review saw Hiqa inspections remotely reviewing the Mid-West foster service, speaking with relevant managers, staff, and foster carers.

It did not include a review of children’s case files.

From the data provided by the Mid-West service area before the inspection, the area had a total of 461 children in foster care.

The majority of these children (344) were placed in general foster care, and 117 were placed in relative foster care, the report notes.

Due to the lack of placements in the area, children were being placed in foster care households that were already at capacity, Hiqa inspectors were told. 

"However, the number of children in placements over the numbers had decreased since the previous inspection from 40 children in 2024 to 33 children at the time of this inspection." 

There were 23 children placed with 15 unapproved relative foster care households.

There were five risks recorded on the Mid-West area’s risk register, the inspection found, relating to "the lack of available placements, non-compliance with achieving statutory requirements due to the inability to recruit staff, risks associated with the use of special emergency arrangements, and the lack of therapeutic services for children in care".

The shortage of placements for children placed in an emergency situation continued to be a concern, the inspection noted. 

While the number of children placed in special emergency arrangements had decreased, Hiqa found the Mid-West area had not been able to progress a rapid access centre to respond to the needs of children requiring emergency placements.

"Managers told inspectors that many of the commissioned services had experienced difficulties with the recruitment of staff, and this had had a knock-on effect in terms of the resources available to meet the complex needs of children."